I do not need to know how many classes you are taking. I do not need to know how little time you have to spend on anything but homework. And I definitely do not need to hear about how little sleep you got thanks to late-night studying.
This is Hillsdale College. Nearly every student on campus is busy with classes, schoolwork, and extracurriculars. You are not alone or exceptional because of your busyness; you are just alone and exceptional in talking about it.
There seems to be something bizarre about human nature that delights in talking about one’s self-inflicted misery. Whether it’s busyness, class difficulty, or extracurricular involvement, we have a strange affinity for describing just how terrible our lives have become.
I’m not immune to the temptation, either. I have often found myself complaining about the number of essays or tests coming up or bemoaning my upcoming night of concentrated studying, ignoring the sheer hypocrisy of my self-pity. After all, if I have so much to do, why am I sitting around telling people about it?
The reality is none of us are likely as busy as we think we are. We all have 168 hours in a week to use. We all have the freedom to fill that time wisely with a mixture of necessities, education, and fun. But inevitably, we all sometimes fail to apportion our time properly and make the best use of the hours available.
In a world where “non-fungible tokens” (NFT) are a legitimate currency, don’t forget the most valuable and vulnerable commodity you have: time. It’s the one thing we can never get enough of, yet never get back.
So the next time you have the overwhelming urge to tell your friends the intimate details of your overloaded schedules, save it. And by “it,” I mean the time you could have spent complaining that’s now available for all the other things in your life that should be done.
Don’t tell me when you’re busy, tell me when you’ve decided to start taking your time seriously.
