Monthly Archives: October 2011

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The Interesting Business of College

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Being a college student is interesting business. On the one hand, we are told repeatedly that this is the time when we get to start living – we have the freedom and the ability to really do what we want. On the other hand, there is an understood rule that we will be responsible, get our degrees, go on to occupy “meaningful” jobs and be productive members of society.

The great absurdity of life, as my friend once said, is that we don’t spend every second of every day doing something we love. Because, he argued, who, if not ourselves, are we trying to make happy? And if there is anytime at all to be happy, isn’t it during our life?

These are important questions to think about. The problem is that happiness is such a hard concept to pin down. Is someone who plays video games all day because that’s what she wants to do really happier than someone who goes to class because she has a responsibility to do so? I don’t think so.

Yes, we should be chasing things we are passionate about all day erryday, but we also shouldn’t let immediate gratification blind us to the fact that some of the things we want we are going to have to wait for.

What do you wish you were doing?

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I’m Asking You for Criticism

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I don’t ask for criticism nearly enough. I get myself into situations where I think I got it all under control. And then I find out I don’t. Then I start to wonder how all of that happened. And it occurs to me that if I asked for some criticism every once in a while, it would fix all of these out of control situations.

I used to play golf competitively. My dad was my coach. It was complicated. I used to complain to him that every time he criticized me, it felt like he was breaking me down. He was my dad, I argued, he should be giving me confidence. And so I made it a big deal that my dad was my coach. It became a challenge that other kids didn’t have to deal with. But the truth was that the hard part wasn’t having a dad that was a coach, it was learning how to take criticism. If someone else had coached me, that coach would have criticized me too. Then I would have been able to come home and have my parents build me up and tell me how great I was already. And I probably would have never gotten better. Instead, I had to learn to take criticism from someone who loved me.

The truth is that when we talk about things that are important to us, we don’t like hearing the problems with those things. We don’t like hearing we are bad at getting people excited when we are the leader of an organization. We don’t like hearing that we are too clingy when we are in a relationship. We don’t like hearing that we don’t spend enough time studying or that we aren’t thrifty enough with our money. But we need to hear it.

Think about how efficient our social interactions would be, how much happier we would be if, instead of meeting over coffee with friends to complain, we asked them what we were doing wrong. Because our friends would tell us lovingly, and they would help us get better. Sure, we might have to bite the bullet and let them start seeing us as people rather than superhumans, but it would be worth it. Batman isn’t happy.

And in the end, it’s our decision what to do with the criticism. Sometimes it just makes you explain more what you are doing. Several people have told me they hate the question at the end of my posts. And I told them that it is standard practice for blogs, and eventually there will be a payoff.

What am I doing wrong? How can I make my blog better?

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Creating Crises

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If there’s something that I know about people it’s that they really like crises. No one will ever admit that. I won’t even admit it. I “hate” crises. I “avoid” them at all costs. Why then do we make up crises when none really exist? We create mountains out of molehills on the reg. Everyone cries over spilled milk. And other reversals of popular cliches.

I was talking about life with a professor of mine the other day. She was telling me that when you get right down to it life is just a long series of lists of problems. When you run out of problems and you run out of lists, you die. I know that it all seems really morbid. But I had the pleasure of being told this by the sweetest tiniest black-haired Medievalist I know. And so that helped me out a little bit. You can imagine me as a sweet tiny black-haired Medievalist if that helps.

I think there is an intense truth to this idea. Somehow, human beings are created to create problems. I think that’s why the whole “I’m just a collection of cells” thing doesn’t sit right with me. If I’m just a collection of cells, then why do I care about my English midterm due on Monday?

It’s because that’s what life is. It’s about finding problems, creating problems. And then solving them. It’s a bit like the pre-schooler who builds a whole city of buildings out of blocks just to knock it down and start all over again. We construct these huge, big crises just so that we can solve them or end them badly, and then we do it again.

If crises are our creation (which they are), then we should embrace them. We should be excited when something goes wrong. It means we have another thing to solve, another reason to stay alive, another reason to try harder tomorrow.

What’s your crisis?