So my roommates and I made a mistake. A big one. And we’re paying for it. The mistake? Embracing short term prematurely. A few of us finished our theses a bit early and we decided to “take a break.” This “break” manifested itself in staying up chatting until 3 in the morning, sleeping in, cooking lavish brunches and most importantly, not doing school work. And we lived like this for a few days and it was great. We kept saying “Wow, it feels like short term.” And it did. The weather was warm, there didn’t seem to be any pressing work concerns… life was good. Until we realized that it was not short term and finals week was coming up and we all had work to do. I had a final test and a final paper that I had to begin work on right away. And sitting down to do work was one of the hardest things I have ever done at Bates College, hands down. I’m telling you, I did NOT want to sit down and do work. I had a premature taste of the sweet fruit of short term and I wanted more. I didn’t want Nietzsche’s theory of perspectivism nor did I want to study religious diversity. I wanted to sleep more. I wanted more 12 am breakfasts and walks in the sunshine.
It was a brutal time. We began by giving ourselves pep-talks. “Comon! You can do it! The end is so close, you can taste it! Once you finish up these last things you’re done and you’re done forever!” When this didn’t work the pep-talks morphed into ultimatums. “If you don’t do this it will continue to hang over your head and you” be miserable forever. Just do it.” And still we put it off.
So what’s the moral of this story? Don’t embrace short term too early. We were like Eve and Adam in the garden and we ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and though it gave us wonderful, rich insight, it was a mistake as we partook too early. We had knowledge of the good life too early. So don’t be like Eve and Adam because we all know what happened to them. Thanks guys. The good life is good but it can’t be had prematurely. Good things come to those who wait. That’s my lesson for the day.
Shhhh,
Steph
