We have all seen Gustavus’ new tagline, “Make your life count,” displayed throughout campus and plastered on the new website. I don’t know about the rest of you, but this freaked me out just a little bit. It might be the realization that, as a senior, the real world is about to hit me in the face in just a few short months, but now Gustavus has been so kind as to offer us a gentle reminder that our lives just may not count in the long run.

Sorry, Gustavus, but I am going to have to ignore our new tag line in some fashion. Even if I am laying on my couch watching football and eating take out Chinese all day at least once a week, I need to keep believing that my life, in one way or another, does count regardless of Gustavus telling me I have to work just a little bit harder to make it count in the end. In order to not come off as a complete Debbie-downer slacker college student, I would like to propose a new spin-off of making our lives count. What if we made IT count, as in the normal stuff, our day-to-day activities and not having to focus so much on the big picture. In the long run hopefully all those little moments and experiences will be enough for a person to look back and realize that yes, their life did count in the end.

In the inspirational and touching 1997 box office hit Titanic, the well-known character Jack provided us with timeless advice that I would like to share. He said, “I figure life’s a gift, and I don’t intend on wasting it. You don’t know what hand you’re gonna get dealt next. You learn to take life as it comes at you … to make each day count.” Although I hope no one reading this has to deal with drowning in frigid ocean waters anytime soon, good ol’ Jack brings up a good point. Every day is a gift and making each day count is worth more in the end than stressing out over the fact that we have an underlying pressure to make our lives count in a big way.

So here is my challenge to you: make the little things count. Make each day count, and in the end that will make a life that counted in every way. I challenge you to find the value in everything you do. It can be the big things—volunteering in our community and knowing you made a difference in somebody’s life. It can be the little things—watching Titanic on Sunday afternoon with great friends instead of doing anything remotely productive and knowing that you have people in your life who make your life a little bit better every day. It can be something extraordinary that only comes around once in a lifetime—attending a speaker on campus that changes your view on something in our world. It can be something mundane—beating your friend in a heated game of cards and knowing you at least have those skills to fall back on and friends who will always be there. Regardless of how you spend every day here at Gustavus, step back and take a second to realize what is making your day count, what value is hiding beneath our day-to-day activities.

As much as I hope each and every one of us here at Gustavus achieves that feeling that our lives counted in the biggest possible way, just remember, it’s not always the big things in life that mean the most. So go ahead fellow Gusties, make your life count, but do it in a way that makes IT count.