What’s one thing you always say you’ll do but don’t end up doing?
I always say I’ll write more, I’ll read more, I’ll cook more. I always say that I’ll devote some time for myself, I’ll meditate, I’ll explore someplace new. I say all of these things as I slog through a seemingly-fixed cycle of “eat, work, sleep, repeat” until suddenly it’s October and my goals for the summer have now become my goals for the winter. When I ask myself why or, in this case, ask my fellow Huskies why, I’ve found that our excuse for not doing the thing we actually want to do is pretty lame:
Camryn Melendez
First-Year Computer Science Major
“I always say I’ll go off-campus into the city and try a new food place I’ve seen on Instagram or [go see] some cool thing [I found] online, but then I never get around to doing it because I’m either too tired or have too much homework. It’s kind of sad.”
Surina Gupta
Second-Year Political Science and Media and Screen Studies Major
“I guess recently it’s been that [I say] I’ll start making some of my own films. I haven’t been because, in my free time, I’d rather sleep and watch TV after class.”
Vincent Coronity
Second-Year Political Science and Biology Major
“Probably going back to the gym and working out. The main reason why I don’t is that [although] I may set aside some time, at the end of the day between work and school, I never really find it.”
Michaela Gee
Fifth-Year Nursing Major
“Definitely cleaning my room. I always say I’m gonna clean it because I like when my room is nice and clean, but I never do it because, by the time I get home from work I end up not wanting to do it.”
Savannah Bell
Third-Year Neuroscience Major
“Work out. I don’t do it because now that it’s cold outside I don’t want to walk all the way to the gym. Also, when you’re really busy it seems like such a hard thing to fit into your schedule when it’s really not, I just convince myself that I don’t have the time.”
“I don’t have time.” Curious to me how we all can find the time for classes, clubs, homework, service work, hobbies, and respectable social lives, but not to read for twenty minutes a day or to cook ourselves a proper meal. Let’s be honest: if there’s enough time in the day to do homework, there’s enough time in the day to go to the gym. It’s not a matter of “having the time;” rather, and what my peers have made evident, to be able to do the things we want is only a matter of how we prioritize the time that we do indeed have. I get it — some extra hours of sleep can definitely seem more attractive in the moment than the painstaking efforts toward your summer bod or the eventual production of your maybe-one-day-award-winning film. But, in the moments that we submit to our regular cycles (when we religiously choose a nap over a new endeavor) we sacrifice opportunities for a greater happiness unknown. If you have the time to prioritize school, you have the time to prioritize yourself. Our wants and needs may not always come first, but lest we forget that sometimes, just sometimes, they should.