I always love coming back to school. Everything is so green and vibrant, even if banana plants look a little out of place in Minnesota. The first-year class wanders about bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, wearing their lanyards around their necks and always looking a little lost in the caf. Each year my room gets better, and after you unpack, there’s really nothing like having all your old friends together after a summer (or longer) of being apart.

Inevitably though, a certain feeling begins to sneak up on me. It’s that feeling when you look around you and begin to realize this life, this place, these people won’t always be here, and that in what will seem like too short a time, you’ll have to leave this little paradise on a hill and join the real world. I don’t like to think about it, so I usually ignore that feeling when it comes. Besides, I still have plenty of classes yet to take, and that thesis won’t write itself.

Instead, I frame the question in a more approachable way. What should I be doing? What is the life I should be living? Should I really be overloading my schedule when I don’t even like what I’m studying? Should I be sleeping more, or less? Our lives as a Gusties can be unbalanced, unfocused, always doing and never thinking; we even schedule our ‘relaxing’ time! Don’t get me wrong, I think taking time out for yourself is a great idea, but between exercising at Lund, practicing music, being part of clubs, hanging out with friends, on top of all the regular class work… I feel like part of a flock of chickens running around with their heads cut off.

Now, I’ve been at this for a two years now, so I’m getting pretty good about maximizing the amount of things I can physically do here at Gustavus, but some people just have a gift to go beyond the limits of regular human activity.

I was talking to a close friend the other day about their schedule, and I’m astonished by how much some people can do: athletics, music, work-study, a sorority, volunteering and she’s in more student organizations than I knew existed on campus. On top of that, I know she has a very large circle of friends, does a lot of partying and goes to Lund at least four times a week. Oh, and did I mention she has two majors and “just feels like she’s not getting her money’s worth” if she’s not taking an overloaded schedule (which she can, because her GPA is very close to a 4.0) But the real frosting on the cake for me is how she’s always smiling, happy, energetic and fashionably dressed.

How does someone do that?! I think we all know a SuperGustie. Have you ever asked them how they keep it up? Really, if you know how to, please tell me. I think I’d have to be constantly drinking coffee and popping pep pills to stay that active, but even then at a certain point I know my body would break.

Even still, I think we all take it upon ourselves to try and be the SuperGustie. You may cut back every now and then, or feel like you’ve really got a handle on life, but that feeling that you could, or rather should be doing more creeps back, and you’re left tired, dazed, and no better off than you were when you started. Worst, and perhaps most childishly, I feel unfulfilled, unsatisfied knowing I simply cannot do as much as it seems some can.

Well, I get the feeling you can sense my confusion. So, what should I be doing? What is the life I should be living? A wise professor once told me that happiness is finding something you love, and devoting your whole life to it. I guess college is the time for figuring out that first part. And this year, as I run around in a flock of headless chickens, I’ll be looking to find that something I can love doing, because I think that could satisfy me more than any number of A’s or student activities ever could.