The evening I first stepped down from the Dinky was the coldest March day of my senior year of high school. I did not believe in love at first sight before that footstep, but soon I was meeting students so extraordinary and standing by castles so magnificent that I didn’t notice my own shivering. By the time I boarded a bus to New York that next afternoon, Princeton was my favorite place in the world. “If I can go here,” I thought, “I’ll be so happy.” We fantasizers all remember our ecstasy when we learned this wonderland had been promised to us. For me, that surge of disbelieving joy came two days after my visit, when decision letters went live online. Five months later, when my Outdoor Action bus rounded the corner onto Nassau Street, I felt ten solid minutes of rapture.
I’m still happy. But, six weeks into my freshman fall, my delight is already fading. The magical dining halls I knew on week one have turned into cafeterias. I've stopped marveling at the lavish architecture and started frowning at the cracks in sidewalks. I joined The Daily Princetonian to have a soapbox to dissent from. Those things that in March I thought would be fountains of eternal happiness have been reduced to the mundane backdrops of my life.
In psychology, this phenomenon is known as the hedonic treadmill: most people return to a stable level of happiness after intensely positive or negative life changes. In other words, we have to keep running to stay at the same place, but, because we’ve been running our whole lives, we don’t notice it. Overwhelmingly, study subjects overestimate the happiness that a future event will bring them. Psychologist Daniel Gilbert, who graduated from the University with a Ph.D. in social psychology in 1985, calls this the impact bias. In his Ted Talk on the subject, Gilbert draws data from a study of quadriplegics and lottery winners. Compared to lottery winners, the quadriplegic group found more joy in everyday life, and, a year post limb-loss, they were just as happy as lottery winners 12 months out from their jackpot.
I feel like I won a lottery last March, and I don’t want to keep falling into the same trap that snared the study’s participants. For the remainder of this column, then, I’ve decided to step back from criticism and sing about the wondrous parts of this University rather than its rare shortfalls. Here are some things I love:
I love the squirrels. They’re cute and fat, and they spazz out if you try to chase them. I love how beautiful the trees turn in the autumn. I get really happy when I catch a leaf that is falling from a tree, and I treasure the sound and the smell of the leaves that are crumbling beneath my feet. I love the roar of the Fountain of Freedom in front of Robertson Hall and the imposing aura of the zodiac sculptures. For that matter, I like all the statues. I especially like the grass, and how much there is of it here. I love the courtyards and the gorgeous gothic buildings they’re attached to. I admire the ivy that crawls up those buildings. I love my residential college, and I love its food. I love that the dining hall workers are so friendly. One smiles when she sees me and calls out to me by name, and this always makes my day better. I’m grateful that I can eat ice cream or frozen yogurt after every meal. I love that my college invites me to dinners with accomplished professors and alumni. I love my own professors, with their passion for their discipline and their commitment to their students. I love learning. I really like free movies on the weekends. Most of all, I love my peers. I love my Residential College Adviser, his snacks and all my friends in my zee group. I love my OA friends, my seminar friends, my dining hall friends and really just about everyone. I have each and every one of you to thank for making Princeton the dreamland that it is.
Come, escape this treadmill with me: What do you love about Princeton?
Newby Parton is a freshman fromMcMinnville, Tenn. He can be reached at newby@princeton.edu.
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