What do you wish you did more of when you were younger?

Michael Clark, Economics: “Outdoor activities—appreciating nature, getting away from everything, disc golfing, hiking, canoeing. Not crazy active outdoor activity, and it’s context-providing. My other answer is too scholastic, and nobody wants to hear it, but I would say try to learn things, not do homework. I think I just checked all the boxes, and I didn’t learn how to learn because I wanted to learn something until I was a junior in college. I just showed up and did what I was supposed to do, but I never learned anything—like actually reading to learn or looking up stuff to actually learn something because I cared about something. Like ‘who cares what my assignments are’ like trying to learn, but that sounds way too professorial. Like, ‘Yup, I did the work! I’m good!’ Who cares? No one cares. Those would be my two.”

Jon Balsbaugh, Education: “Spend more time developing an art as a way of creating beauty.”

Allison Postell, Philosophy: “Read and expose myself to the discipline of thinking well about important subjects.”

Andrew Russell, Biology: “Reading because I’ve never been an avid reader, especially not when I was younger, so I think it’s taken me some time in my adult life to try to catch up with that. I would definitely change how much I read as a kid, as a teenager, to improve what I already know today. 

Miles Smith IV, History: “I wish I would have spent more time at the pool. I was a lifeguard, and I didn’t start lifeguarding until I was 20. That was one of the best jobs I ever had—super easy, and you feel good. I was pretty healthy when I did it so I wish I just would have started doing that when I was 16 instead of in my twenties. That’s something I think about a lot. I was at the pool all the time, which just goes to show you how obsessed I was with water. I think living up here makes me appreciate it more since it’s cold a lot, and I’m from North Carolina, I lived in Texas for a long time so I miss warm water stuff. If I would have known I was going to live up here, I wish I would have spent more time there.”

Maria Servold, Journalism: “I feel like I only recently started making things for the sake of making things. I wish I would have spent more time being creative.”