With two days of my summer class left, and two days left of college, I've realized something quite profound. If you'd asked me even two months ago about the possibility of attending grad. school, I would have said that it can be assumed. I love learning, I love that I'm good at academics, and I love being in control of what seems to be a fundamental part of success. But I need to get out. Two months ago, I would have said that I can't imagine my life without school in it. I wouldn't know what to do with myself, without papers to write or tests to ace. Today I know that if I don't get out of school now, it will eat up my identity. Like a workaholic's self-destructive relationship with his office cubicle, I will become a robot devoid of anything other than the ambition to continue perfection, if I don't "Step away from the school!" Without my prestigious place near the top of the academic ladder, it is a sure thing that I'll feel inadequate at certain fundamentally-weak moments of the next few months. But I am absolutely certain I am finishing college at the exact moment before my homework-sucking, over-achieving soul would turn to programmed mush.
I want to know what it's like to chill out. To live without thinking about what I "should" be doing with my time. I "should" be enjoying myself. Not wondering if there's some glorious thesis waiting to be laid upon the world by my study-sustained mind. Like any addict, I might come crawling back to the land of the learning, begging to be put through more grueling assignments that will make me a "better person". As a true friend, don't give me what I seek. Tell me to let it go, and learn to "live a little."
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