Jo | 4,000 weeks of life
The biggest lie they’ll tell you about Stanford is that it will be the best four years of your life.
It starts with well-meaning parents and teachers. Then, alums chime in on Reddit. Seniors tell starry-eyed frosh, “Enjoy it while you can.”
There’s so much fear mongering. Constant reminders that once you graduate, the exclusive privileges and opportunities of being a Stanford student expire.
“It’s all downhill from here,” as Frank Ocean sang in “Pink + White.”
What a grim world to step into.
I took ENGR 104B: “Designing Your Life” on a whim my junior spring. On the first day, we watched a video which explained that this popular myth sets us up for fear and disappointment. Everyone in the classroom (all juniors and seniors) nodded their heads vigorously. I got a feeling that many of us had been hurt from the incredible expectations attached to a Stanford education. The prescription that we must excel at extracting both value and genuine satisfaction out of our time here.
I spent the majority of college second-guessing my choices. I felt waves of disappointment, doubt and fear.
If I stayed in to read a book, I wondered if I should have attended a meet-and-greet with a district attorney instead. If I went out to eat dinner in San Francisco, I wondered if I should have started writing a political science essay instead. If I took polaroid pictures of flowers around campus, I wondered if I should have gone to a Row house party instead.
In general, I am happy and content with my life. But I always asked myself: What if I regret this later because my iteration of Stanford wasn’t optimal?
I was overjoyed to read a quote in “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals” (referring to the number of weeks in around 80 years) that summed up my frustration. “We recoil from the notion that this is it — that this life, with all its flaws and inescapable vulnerabilities, its extreme brevity, and our limited influence over how it unfolds, is the only one we’ll get a shot at.”
I’ve gotten to know some parts of Stanford intimately in ways that many other students haven’t. I’ve biked from EVGR to the Stanford Farm at midnight. I’ve gazed at stars from the nearly pitch-black sections of faculty housing on Alvarado Row. I’ve seen lots of theater and dance shows alone.
But I’ve never gone to Bay to Breakers, Dunch or Nomad. I never took CS 106A/B, Social Dance, Golf, or went to a lecture by Robert Sapolsky, Andrew Ng or Alexander Nemerov. I barely know startup founders or even hopefuls. My fountain “hopping” consisted of walking around in fountains instead of swimming.
Did I miss out? Did I make mistakes?
What held me back for most of my college experience was my frantic clawing at time — my inability to move on. If I made a mistake, I mulled over the possible negative implications for so long that it caused me more harm than my original mistake. I repeated to myself, “Why are you scrolling on Reddit/Fizz/Instagram again? You know this is a terrible waste of time.” But, I kept scrolling to escape the terror of confronting the fact that I had made bad choices. Instead of pausing, taking a breath and moving onto something new and different, often I fell into the pit of letting guilt over the past fuel new bad choices.
Nowadays, I replace incessant worry with the reminder that there are decades of life beyond Stanford.
I’m learning to choose differently. I’m learning that I can choose differently tomorrow, even if tomorrow is after Stanford has ended.
“Missing out … on almost everything is basically guaranteed … Every decision to use a portion of time on anything represents the sacrifice of all the other ways in which you could have spent that time, but didn’t — and to willingly make that sacrifice is to take a stand, without reservation, on what matters most to you,” wrote Oliver Burkeman in “Four Thousand Weeks.”
Yes, there are Olympians here, and people who sleep over with friends every night, and people who don’t have a Reddit addiction. I am none of those. But I want people to talk more about a different Stanford narrative. Stanford, for many, will be cultivating ground for bigger and better things. It may not come with highly visible, digestible achievements like shiny awards or Series A funding. For many, it will be four years of learning a little more about adulting, grappling with the complexity of academic disciplines and how to be a good civic citizen, rather than changing the world.
I no longer see Stanford as a clock that started counting down the minute I started NSO and will hit zero on Commencement day. My last five years were inextricably intertwined with my emerging adulthood. There is no magic ribbon I cut with a scissor to usher in the rest of my life on June 16. I celebrate the milestone of graduation, but I know it is totally possible (and in fact, probable) to continue flourishing after leaving the Farm.
Yet, I will miss the special community of The Stanford Daily and how people at The Daily advocated for service to community, excellence with purpose and the joy of writing and thinking deeply and cooperatively.
The Stanford Daily was the one constant throughout my Stanford experience. Writing and editing connected me to people who also loved overthinking in pursuit of cathartic joys and epiphanies. It gave me friends, a place to express myself and, most importantly, a community of people who value the power of written expression so much that they dedicate almost every day and night to sharpening their craft and illuminating what happens and matters at Stanford. The result is some of the most revelatory news articles and essays I’ve read in my life.
In an earlier draft of this — my last article for The Stanford Daily — I felt tempted to title this “4,000 weeks before death” in dramatic fashion. But I won’t get sucked into my old ways of doom and gloom. Hence my new title; hence my composure in the face of sad news that I have to leave The Daily. You can be sure I’ll keep writing. And I’ll keep living.
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