Despite the torrential downpour and bracing winds that batter us as we go to class, we accept it is, in fact, spring. Meteorologically speaking, this was a year of contradictions; freak snow at Halloween followed by a mild winter. Looking at the bigger picture, this year has also been witness to milestones, drama, firsts and lasts. Being a sophomore, it seems apt that at a time that presents so many crossroads, I am faced with one of my very own. Here lies the halfway point. Just as a glass of water sitting precariously on a kitchen counter threatens to either remain stationary or tumble, you feel as if you can either lose your balance and collapse, or walk the tightrope and prevail.
Last week, a couple of friends and I realized that our time of freedom this semester was coming to an end. In light of this alarming realization, I panicked. I panicked because, like many of us facing an end, we worry that we may look back in disappointment that we didn’t seize spontaneity. We worry that we neglected the infamous “carpe diem” concept. Or in more contemporary terms, we hope we can reflect and say we embraced the “YOLO” mentality.
As we grow into the college environment that used to be so alien to us, we inevitably become burdened with more responsibility and understanding of what is at stake around us. All of a sudden, we have more interest than ever in political leadership elections both here and overseas. Technological acquisitions that used to be nothing more than blips on our computer screens become evermore significant. No longer are we solely passive witnesses to our fate; now more than ever, we have reached a point in life where we are expected to be instigators. As if we were guests at a lavish medieval feast, we heap our plates full with extracurricular activities, internships applications, academic course loads and everything that fills the remaining gaps in our schedules. Moments of retrospection seem impossible to come by as we are bombarded with obstacles to prove our dependability.
It’s an out-of-body experience, taking the time to freeze life as we know it and look around. This moment when you feel you’re stationary and perpetually moving all at the same time may come when you finally decide to declare your major at the registrar’s office. The moment may come when you realize summer is near, and you have no idea how time disappeared. For me, that moment came as I stood on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus steps in the early hours of the morning.
As the night wore on before that point, we found ourselves crossing over the bridge to the MIT campus, following the dazzling lights of a Tetris game being played on the tall Green Building. I’m sure I am not the first to find a parallel between the simple game and life as we know it. Just like those colorful blocks falling down the screen, life is about letting the pieces fall into place. We would soon learn that this was the finished product of an elaborate hack that simultaneously baffled and transfixed onlookers. As we meandered through campus, a young, timid girl who looked slightly lost approached us. She was an accepted student who had been invited to MIT for an accepted students weekend. She was also just entering the Rogers Building. . . at 4 a.m. Perplexed, we asked her why she was up. “They tell us we aren’t supposed to sleep during pre-frosh weekend. If you do, you’re doing it wrong.” This unsuspecting high school senior from California uttered those words nonchalantly, but they reverberated through my mind like the shockwaves of an earthquake.
The wisdom I leave this year with isn’t that sleep-deprivation entails a more fulfilled life. It’s when we fall asleep with regard to compassion, determination and valuing what actually matters, that’s when we are doing it all wrong. It’s when we neglect the people, places and little things that make us happy that we fall into a destructive slumber. As we go our separate ways for those long summer months – and for many of you, potentially the rest of your lives – it should be a time where you can indulge in the clichés of hope, change and invincibility. We all set out on this hiatus with high hopes; this year we shall keep them. We leave this year with our triumphs and our mistakes in equal measure, and as in Tetris, how we choose to combine those experiences when we see them side by side is what matters. And when we return, we will once more pick up our college lives and resume our balancing act.
When I returned to the campus that I have grown to love over the past two years, I hurriedly turned on a laptop to track my brother running the London Marathon, about 3,000 miles away and 5 hours ahead. An indescribable feeling came over me as my 17-year-old “baby” brother’s tracking information showed he had done it. My body ached in compassionate pain for the athletic odyssey he had just endured; despite an ocean between my home and me, that same adrenalin coursed through human veins. For tonight, I wasn’t supposed to sleep. For tonight, I knew if I had, I would have been doing it all wrong.
Sofiya Mahdi is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences and the Opinion Page Editor at The Daily Free Press. She can be reached at letters@dailyfreepress.com.
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