BY CHRISTINA BAIK and SETH DONOUGHE

In print | Published April 27, 2006

Like frogs, cicadas and butterflies, Swarthmore students have a remarkable lifecycle. After months of solitary life in our cocoons, protected from the elements in dorms, libraries and classes, late spring becomes the magical time of metamorphosis. Conditions have recently been just right: Temperatures have hovered in the 70s, the arboretum is absolutely beautiful, and it is still early enough not to stress about finals. The transformation truly is astonishing. Swatties are suddenly more numerous, socially inclined, physically attractive, athletically adept and likely to grin, chuckle and even giggle.

Such an idyllic place! Well, perhaps. Contrary to appearances, a lot of Swarthmore students are unhappy. We may enjoy ourselves from time to time, but when we get the chance to think about our lives, there is often discontent. Of course, not everyone has been unhappy with life at Swarthmore, but we’ve each personally experienced discontentment, as have many people we’re acquainted with. For some of us, unhappiness stems from a general dissatisfaction with our academic lives. Sure, we can occasionally appreciate the process, but really, this lack of sleep, these long intellectual conversations, these achievements … what are they all for? Successful careers and rich intellectual lives? Even if our motivation is to selflessly apply our knowledge in helping the world, we invariably question if all this effort is worth it in the end. Thus, there is a need to address how misery poker is often more than just an annoying habit.

Academic work and our lives at Swarthmore in general are a burden to many people — those who are very serious when they groan about what (still) must be done. Some feel forced to skim or skip readings altogether, lock themselves up in a library cubicle all day or feel guilty after some much needed procrastination. Workload, intensified by other responsibilities, can get discouraging. School then becomes just a means of getting to the next step in life, and consequently, people are run-down, counting the days until the school year ends.

There is also dissatisfaction with our social lives. While such a small school allows us to get acquainted with a large portion of the people we see from day to day, there can seem to be a lack of substance in our relationships. After receiving a “Hey, how are you?” and an instant walk-away for twenty straight interactions with someone, we begin to doubt the value of the friendship. We become so busy and spread too thinly across all our responsibilities that nearly every relationship we have is wholly superficial. This leads to loneliness and frustration with everyone we know, which can eventually lead to denying the possibility of worthwhile friendships altogether. As a result, it becomes difficult to justify investing in relationships at all.

As we see it, the source of this unhappiness lies in the inevitable human tendency to be self-centered. We take full charge of upholding and improving our mental, emotional, and material well-being. Therefore, any time we fall short, it is our guilt or self-deprecation that must be amended by further achievements. This is a self-defeating cycle, because we’ll never reach perfection, as there is always something else we can/should do. We need to work towards more gratitude and less pride. Being grateful for our blessings can be pretty easy, but it’s important for us to appreciate the difficulties as well. Although this conflicts with our tendency to leave it at complaining or try to alleviate the difficulties ourselves, it can be remarkably freeing to just stop and appreciate. Living in such thankfulness helps us to approach our responsibilities, academic and otherwise, with the humility that we can’t do it all. This should help us find fulfillment and even joy, when we can’t really see an ultimate value in writing yet another paper or slogging through a final week of classes.

Living in gratitude also has great implications for one’s friendships. If our personal gain from a relationship is the only focus, then we’ll get disappointed every time because relationships aren’t meant to be unilateral. But if we realize how much of a blessing it is to be able to make connections with fellow Swatties, then we can have fulfillment in making ourselves a bit more vulnerable by making a point to invest in others.

Christina and Seth are sophomores. You can reach them at cbaik1@swarthmore.edu and sdonoug1@swarthmore.edu.

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