Lighten up
By: Will Pappas
Issue date: 3/27/09 Section: Opinions
As everyday passes on our picturesque campus and the thermostat takes the slow climb up the centigrades, I am reminded of just how finite our time here at Furman is. With each passing day, the descent towards the last week in April comes faster and faster. Everyone has to have their summer plans set, seniors have to have their life plans set, and on top of all of that there is the oft forgotten reason we are all here - classes, grades, scholastic accolades.
Now before any of you crack a molar from stress-induced teeth grinding, I want to say that I am not writing this editorial to remind you all of the reasons you wake up in a pool of your own sweat thinking how your daily schedule could compose the entirety of fmylife.com. I am writing it to stress how important it is to breathe, to go outside and experience life.
There is more to Furman than can be fit in between the lines of a daily planner and I am urging all of you to release yourselves from the half-hour by half-hour rigor that has overtaken campus this year.
So often I hear people, myself included, whine about their classes and how much work they have to do and how much they hate school. Have any of us stopped to think that we might be doing it wrong? If we are not enjoying what we are learning, if all we can get out of scholastic exercise is an anxiety disorder, why are parents and beneficiaries spending so much money over it? By all means, I am not implying we should burn our luxury-priced text books while chanting "we don't need no education" Pink Floyd style. What I am saying is we all need to find time this spring to enjoy learning.
This is probably the last time in our lives where we will be charged to do nothing more than sit around and explore the world we live in. We will never have this opportunity again and we have to find some way to enjoy it. Let us not forget that a joy of learning is probably one of the major reasons we were attracted to Furman in the first place.
Now before any of you crack a molar from stress-induced teeth grinding, I want to say that I am not writing this editorial to remind you all of the reasons you wake up in a pool of your own sweat thinking how your daily schedule could compose the entirety of fmylife.com. I am writing it to stress how important it is to breathe, to go outside and experience life.
There is more to Furman than can be fit in between the lines of a daily planner and I am urging all of you to release yourselves from the half-hour by half-hour rigor that has overtaken campus this year.
So often I hear people, myself included, whine about their classes and how much work they have to do and how much they hate school. Have any of us stopped to think that we might be doing it wrong? If we are not enjoying what we are learning, if all we can get out of scholastic exercise is an anxiety disorder, why are parents and beneficiaries spending so much money over it? By all means, I am not implying we should burn our luxury-priced text books while chanting "we don't need no education" Pink Floyd style. What I am saying is we all need to find time this spring to enjoy learning.
This is probably the last time in our lives where we will be charged to do nothing more than sit around and explore the world we live in. We will never have this opportunity again and we have to find some way to enjoy it. Let us not forget that a joy of learning is probably one of the major reasons we were attracted to Furman in the first place.