Calm Down People!: A Public Service Announcement

Finals week at Penn officially began today, and I'd like to get on my soap box for a bit and preach, if you don't mind. It bothers me when I scroll down my buddy list and see such frayed nerves, distraught intensity, and ridiculous worrying. A measure of academic discipline and a sense of responsibility is good, but as a person who can claim to have neither, I keep seeing these good virtues going horribly wrong. I am perturbed to continually come across away messages that read things like, "STUDYING FOREVER!", "STUDYING FOR 50 HOURS STRAIGHT!", "STUDYING UNTIL MY EYES BLEED!", "STUDYING UNTIL THE END OF TIME!", or simply "FUCK!!!" If this is you, please calm down. If this is someone you know, please tell them to calm down. What these people lack is perspective. Life is long. Life goes on. Moreover, all of this is meaningless. You think your GPA determines the course of the rest of your life? You think what you do (and how well you do it) in these four short years here equates to your life? Well here's some news: your GPA is meaningless. It's a silly number that says nothing and means nothing. What is of far greater import than how well you do in college is what you learn in college, and I don't really mean what you learn in your classes either. I mean what you learn from and about people, and what you learn about life. That's what's important. Life consists of so much more than these textbooks and grades. Life is about being a happy and good person, not a straight-A student with a 4.0 GPA. Life is about doing everything you can to be able to die with a laugh escaping your lips, rather than a sigh of regret. Life is about love. Life is about life.

Sadly, I know no one who actually needs to read this message will read it until it's too late, since none of you ultra-intense super-students could possibly be bothered to come read my blog at this critical, life-turning watershed juncture in your life known as Finals Week. Which is just too bad, I guess.

As for me, I probably have a little too much perspective, which will explain my underperformance and underachievement this semester. But do I honestly care? No. I lived and am living my renaissance with a happy heart and a smile. To interpret the message of a great Radiohead song, "Fitter Happier More Productive = A Pig In A Cage On Antiobiotics." Don't let that become the story of your life. Rather, go live instead. And good luck on your exams.