I have been told that January 22nd is the most depressing day of the year. Sunlight is scarce, Christmas bills are filling mailboxes and people are coming to the realization that their three weeks of New Years-inspired jogging and Pilates will not actually help them land a model, a professional football player or even a promotion. Forget April, Mr. Eliot; January appears to be the cruelest month.
The 22nd is my birthday and has therefore been a traditionally joyous celebration of me, in that wonderfully narcissistic kind of way. People are obliged to shower me with flowers, undeserved compliments and fruity beverages. It is, in short, delightful. This year, as I lay prone on my couch watching E!, I began to ruminate on the state of all the depressed people wallowing whilst I watched. Lauinger Library—a mere 500 feet from my apartment—was surely teeming with such winter depressives, working away into the wee hours of the morning, kept alive by the distant promise of a fat paycheck and the deed to a trendy loft apartment in five to ten years.
There are many factors that can obstruct happiness: illness, debt, jeans that wear away on your inner thighs, sour beer and plastic chairs that sound like flatulence are only a few. College brings its own set of trials: homework, deadlines, the freshman fifteen and the fear that all your degree will get you is a management position at your local liquor store.
To counteract these fears, we pull all-nighters, kickbox and chomp at the bit for the most prestigious internship. As a result, we are smart, thin and occasionally labeled by some as ravenous careerists, the most despicable breed of cloying elitist.
Two weeks ago, The Voice revealed the existence of a confidential document, written by prominent faculty members, that contained sharp critiques of what the authors perceive to be a pervasive sense of entitlement and intellectual complacency shared by the student body as a whole (see “Georgetown’s Secret Report Card,” Jan. 17). To be sure, there is some truth to the notion that Georgetown and other prestigious universities are seen by certain segments of the population as finishing schools for the nation’s elite. And yes, students here can at times appear more interested in the state of the stock market than the pillars of Plato’s philosophy. But perhaps rather than accuse Hoyas of being greedy grade-grubbers, the authors of the report should consider the root cause of the career craze: our skewed notion of happiness.
It is all fine to sit in freshman-year philosophy class and listen wide-eyed as the professor soliloquizes on the fleeting nature of material goods—in fact, such lectures are the reason why people were sent to college in the first place—but by the time junior or senior year rolls around, our lofty thoughts have been replaced with the reality of accrued debt from bloated tuition bills and the looming horizon of the dreaded “real world.” That shining ideal of a Utopian society that we learned about freshman year suddenly seems possible only if one lives off of a consultant’s paycheck and lays his or her head on hundred-count pillow cases.
To add insult to injury, the stress we are putting ourselves through to secure an idyllic future might actually be taking its toll. The factors contributing to heart disease, such as high blood pressure, brought on by stress can be developed at a young age, and won’t physically manifest themselves until years later, when you will be supposedly be eating caviar off of French china.
Not that there aren’t happy rich people. Anyone who has seen Hugh Hefner in action would argue that money has opened up certain avenues of personal fulfillment that an impoverished man could never hope for. It is unrealistic to push the notion that an ascetic lifestyle will bring joy and spiritual fulfillment to everyone. We don’t all have to use gold-plated toilets, but I think everyone appreciates the small luxuries of running water, soap and dare I say, television.
There are of course, things we can do to provide some measure of increased happiness in the lives of the Georgetown student body. I suggest lowering tuition in order to reduce the strain such staggering financial responsibility puts on families and the future of the American education system. In lieu of that sweeping gesture, I would suggest that we all eat more dark chocolate, ride bikes with the fervor of the Dutch, embrace yoga with Christy Turlington-esque enthusiasm and watch a hell of a lot of college basketball. It may not be Plato, but it is plausible that happiness lies in the little things.
