Leah Niebuhr | Contributing Illustrator

“Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished” – Lao Tzu

Last week, my friends asked me if I wanted to drive up to Mid America Adventure, formerly Six Flags St. Louis, to celebrate a first week well done. That probably wasn’t the most logical idea. I’m terrified of heights and high speeds, and I had a stunning amount of homework due that Monday. So obviously, I said yes.

As my stomach began to sink toward my feet during a crazy turn, my mind was racing as well. Between blackouts and flashes of utter terror, I began to wonder about a problem set I hadn’t yet started. Would I be able to fit it in between all of my readings? Could I finally use Gradescope without suffering an apoplectic fit? Eventually, it sunk in that, even under enough G-forces to turn me into a fine paste, I was still thinking about the work I had due the next week. “This probably isn’t healthy,” I thought, while the world spun around me. 

I hadn’t come to the amusement park to think about homework; I had come to have fun, to spend time with my friends, and to make memories that will stay with me after I’ve forgotten all the math I’ve learned in college, which will hopefully be later and not sooner.

To be clear, the issue wasn’t that I had remembered my homework, or that I had cared about completing it — the problem was that my work was invading my time away from academics. I felt guilty about trying to have fun, and it’s only in writing this that I realize how ridiculous that sounds. Every single choice or event in your life cannot be evaluated purely by how productive you will be or how close you can come to some future goal. You have to take time for yourself.

We live in a society that is increasingly becoming obsessed with social, physical, and economic optimization. Every choice we make is weighed against a different, better decision on social media. Furthermore, as WashU students, we are constantly surrounded by smart, incredibly driven people, and our school’s culture reflects that. Everybody here seems to belong to a million clubs, have a million different leadership roles, and still manage to excel in Chem Lab. There is a very good reason we are the “scholar-champions” and not the “champion-scholars.”

As a result, when these two worlds of over-optimization and college life come together, it is easy to feel like you’re falling behind or not taking full advantage of your education. For many people, including myself, every moment not spent Claude-coding, LinkedIn-headshot-maxxing, or rotting in Olin can feel like it’s being wasted. In truth, you are probably wasting very little of your time (except when you’re doomscrolling, which is a different problem).

Moments of reflection and relaxation rarely feel as though they are building to something larger like research and academics do, but they are. What’s the point of being successful if you hate your life? We’re all sick to death of hearing about “holistic well-being” from Student Life, but I think the idea behind it has a lot of merit. Taking time for yourself is essential for you as a human being, and it can look different for everyone. I probably wouldn’t recommend substance abuse or general danger seeking, but everyone is going to make their own choices. I would personally recommend roller coasters, just to put into perspective that there are things scarier than a Canvas notification (like a 200-foot free fall).

I’m also not suggesting you take leave from academics entirely or devote yourself to some grand philosophical or artistic ideal. Though, if you did do that, you would probably be the first-ever student at WashU to take on a reasonable workload.