Often times we become slaves to the shackles of numbers: calculating, counting up and counting down. A few examples include counting up money, calculating grade point averages and, perhaps the most priceless of all, counting down time.
There are thirty-one days until graduation. There are twenty-eight days until the completion of another DePauw University semester. There are fifteen days until the end of classes. There is one day before the weekend.
Are humans preconditioned, inherently inclined or destined to head down the path of eternal counting? In reality, will there be a better tomorrow by wondering if time will be different on the other side of thirty-one?
Wishing the days away and hoping for a better tomorrow is exponentially easier to accomplish than making today better than tomorrow. When our lives are at odds with our wishes, we feel the everlasting sentiment that things should have been better yesterday.
However, is that really the way we wish to continue living? It is not living at all if a conscious, autonomous decision is made to sit through the day passively, wishing with the luck of a four-leaf clover for life to simply pass by handing out good fortune at random. I propose a challenge-in some respects, similar to a daily boulder run. Live in the moment.
When the first snowflake, ahead of the pack, gently floats to the ground after an elegant tangle with gravity, DePauw students run naked to the boulder. The real challenge is to live in the moment the first snowflake falls everyday. Do not wait complacently for the alarm of winter signaled by a rush of snowflakes. Dash alongside your friends with your arms stretched out reaching as far as possible to grasp the boulder. Live in the moment.
Think of clothes as only physical representations of your insecurities. Strip them off and sprint naked of your vulnerabilities to the boulder in a better day. No longer should our "clothes" mask our ability to make today the better day for which we have been yearning so long.
Think of the boulder as the manifestation of everything you'll miss after graduation. Grasp the boulder with your fingers. Make sure you hold on tight because it is other side of thirty-one days. It is the other-side of twenty-eight. It is the other side of fifteen. Live in the moment.
It may be a painful experience pushing forward towards the finish line, while fighting the obstacles of hand cramps and anxiousness through a midterm. Or it may be more pleasurable; maybe it's your last Little Five. Perhaps it's even the last time you sit on a friend's bed before you part ways for just the summer.
Regardless, I would rather experience nostalgia for something that I've lost due to living in the moment than feel nostalgic for something that I have not yet lost, and will not lose unless I have the courage to grab it in the first place.
- Chen is a sophomore sociology major from New York City.