Pushing through midterms, with attitude

During such a week, when commitments are piled high and the pressure to do well is piled on top, it’s easy to lose sight of why we are here and to fall into a grumbling, sleep-deprived autopilot. I, for one, know that I’m guilty of this — just ask any of my friends or my boyfriend.

But stressful as this week is, what if we took a moment to stand back? In my first column last fall, I wrote about my experience taking a year off from school. I ended the column saying, “I returned to Princeton refreshed, energized and centered. I have the purpose and motivation to live my life actively rather than passively and to get what I want out of Princeton.”

Yet I find myself back where I was two years ago, before I took time off, feeling stressed and over-worked, just trying to get everything done.

I have a friend who, almost without fail, asks me what I’ve learned at the end of each week. I tend to look at her with a blank stare. What have I learned this week? I search the nooks and crannies of my mind trying to remember something, anything that would be an answer to her question. I almost invariably come up short. It’s not that I haven’t learned anything. I’ve learned a lot. But in the rush of trying to get everything done, time blurs together and it’s hard to remember what was when. Ideas don’t get fully absorbed, and memories of readings deteriorate. Worse, the enjoyment of learning is lost as it becomes a chore.

Partially, the problem is that professors assign too much reading. When you have hundreds of pages to read, skimming becomes inevitable and there is no time to stop and ponder as you read. With so little time and so much to do, it’s hard to process and absorb the reading before rushing to the next one.

Partially, the problem is that we overextend ourselves in our extracurricular activities, whittling down what little time we have even further.

But partially, it’s our attitudes. As much as I complain about my workload, most of my readings are interesting. And as much as I belabor my friends with complaints of how much I have to do on top of school, I wouldn’t give up any of my activities. It’s important to recognize our limitations, but the answer isn’t necessarily to do less. Sometimes the answer is to do what we do with a positive attitude.

In a recent column, Joey Barnett described a Monday that was full of classes, rehearsals, appointments and work. Though Barnett was running on only five hours of sleep, he was full of energy and excitement. He noted the unusualness of his excitement and wondered what had inspired the change. Ultimately, he figured it out: “Everything I was doing was of my own volition,” he wrote. “I did not feel obligated to go to class; I wanted to. My alarm wasn’t the only thing pulling me out of my bed; it was my own desire to start the day. What made today special was the fact that everything was on my terms.”

Maintaining a positive attitude about our work and activities may be easier said than done, particularly during this week, but if we remember that we chose to come to Princeton and we chose to take the classes we’re in, maybe we can recall the excitement from when we got our acceptance letters or when we signed up for our current classes. I practically salivate over course descriptions when choosing courses for the next semester, envisioning how interesting the classes will be and how much I’ll learn. That doesn’t have to end just because we get busy. If we approach our class work as something we want to do, rather than as an obligation to check of a to-do list, we will be more productive, get more out of our educations and, just as importantly, enjoy the time we spend learning.

Given how busy Princeton students are, it’s easy to get caught in the trap of viewing everything as something we “have” to do. But a simple switch in mentality, from “should” to “want,” can make all the difference. If we clear the clutter from our brain created by the continuous loop of “I have to do this,” “next I have to go to that meeting” and “just 20 more pages to read,” at the end of the week we’ll remember something besides “I had so much work to do.” And at the end of four years, we’ll have enjoyable memories and something to show for our diplomas.

Miriam Geronimus is a sophomore from Ann Arbor, Mich. She can be reached at mgeronim@princeton.edu.