Wash, Rinse, Repeat

8:45 am: Wake up, pick out an outfit that screams ‘I’M TRYING HARD BUT I’M NOT A TRY-HARD,’ apply a makeup look that doesn’t look too makeup-y, push hair into the ~~perfect messy bun~~, finish up readings for the first class of the day.

10:05 am: Attend first class of the day with an iced coffee and fruit cup in hand, participate just the right amount to where the professor loves you, but the students don’t hate you, effortlessly text all your group-chats while making intelligent comments without breaking a sweat.

12:00 pm: Meet up with friends for lunch, talk loudly in the dining hall about last night’s antics and how good the pizza was at the late-night.

1:00 pm: Head to the library to study for your next class’s exam.

3:05 pm: Attend next class, take exam while feeling pretty unconfident about it (probably shouldn’t have gone out last night) but hey, it happens to everyone!

4:30 pm: Go straight to the gym after the exam to take the spin class your friends love, but it fills up fast, so you have to speed walk.

6:00 pm: Return to your dorm, shower, get ready for dinner.

7:00 pm: Go to dinner with your professor to discuss your impending senior thesis.

8:00 pm: Rush to a club meeting which you stopped caring about freshman year but it’s too late to quit at this point and you’re low-key the Vice President of it.

8:45 pm: Back to the library to do some homework and studying.

9:45 pm: Realize you have to go back to the dorm already to get ready to go out.

11:00 pm: Uber to the pregame…

And repeat, and repeat, and repeat.

This is often what my life looks and feels like: a smorgasbord of obligations, social and academic and personal are crammed into my days. I often feel that if I don’t write everything down in my planner or constantly remind myself of my plans for the day, I will forget something, and everything will fall apart. I know I’m not alone on this—I have commiserated with many of my college friends about how exhausting this lifestyle is. Even my university’s Facebook meme page constantly jokes about this culture of constant stress.

Having a Type A personality in college might seem like a match made in heaven—your days are perfectly parsed to fit your class schedule, club and group project meetings, social obligations, and workout regimen—but how sustainable is this lifestyle? Some seem to thrive in this sink-or-swim environment, but I find it utterly draining.

The thing about this type of existence is that much of it is for other people. This type of selflessness is good—noble, even. Whether it be by traversing across campus to get dinner with a friend or sacrificing your precious ‘me-time’ to meet with a mentor, you need this kind of generosity in your life so that you can build the relationships which support and nurture you. But as I end my junior year of college, I am realizing that self-love requires self-care, and self-care requires that you do positive things for yourself often. That means sleeping in, or doing a workout you actually enjoy, or watching a movie that makes you happy-cry.

I’ve found that it is of crucial importance to do things for other people, namely spending time with friends and meeting with professors and colleagues to bolster my academic experience. But the fast-paced college setting makes it easy for me to forget that I am fully capable of cutting out the things that add little to nothing to my life, like that pointless club I joined when I thought I’d be an Econ major and now feel too guilty to leave, or going out every night possible just to avoid the FOMO, or occasionally choosing my social life over academics because of the insecurity that people will bond over some inside joke or make some formative memory without me.

Why is it that being vaguely “busy” is a natural response that college students give one another when asked how they’re doing? Specificity is no longer necessary because we all experience the same, occasionally-overwhelming, “busy-ness.” Some people use this notion of busy-ness as source of pride that they can at least feign productivity. Others, like me, say it with a tone of relatable-ness, of commiserating, of “hang in there—I’m right there with you.”

Worse yet, I have found myself both judging others and getting judged when I am not constantly busy. I even judge myself when I take a break in the library to watch an episode of Netflix,

'you’re wasting precious time!!! This is time you could either be using STUDYING or SOCIALIZING or even BINGE DRINKING!!! Get it together!!!'

These pressures that we place on ourselves and on others to stay constantly busy yet thrive while doing so can be conducive to success for some, yes. But for me, they are suffocating. The “work hard play hard” culture seems harmless, but the promise of fun and academic fulfillment can mislead someone into fueling the trope of the constantly-stressed, overworked, on-the-verge-of-a-mental-breakdown college student. This is not a healthy lifestyle.

After I graduate (hypothetically), I know I will look back at my college experience fondly. There is no question that I will be deeply grateful for the professors, friends, and experiences that my college experience has given me. But I will perhaps be equally relieved to enter a world that allows me to focus my energy on more things that I am genuinely passionate about, invested in, or a benefactor of.

And this is why, even given the sadness and nostalgia that end-of-the-year vibes serve up, I have always thrived during my summers. Everyone is off doing their own thing in their own city (unless you’re doing consulting in NYC, that’s never really someone’s “own thing”), so there’s no mold you have to feel pressured to fit. Go out when you want to. Stay in when you want to. Read for pleasure. Watch films—not for conversation topics, and not to bring up in class discussions, but to get an honest good laugh or a satisfying cry out. Reach out to the people you care about, avoid the toxic ones. Love yourself.

A summer of self-love is always the refreshing period I need to re-learn a thing or two about balance and to authentically grow into an even better version of myself.

By Victoria Wang

Duke Student, resident globe-trotter and founder of getting foreign food posts trending