Last weekend, my friend and I devised a brilliant solution to Duke Dining’s deficit. You can thank us later.
It’s simple: Sell all merchandise from a truck that sporadically appears at random locations around campus. The harder each vendor is to find, the more valuable the food becomes! Students would rush to purchase Sitar, Sushi Nara, those $8 gluten-free dinners…. OK, so maybe some items will never be appealing. And yes, we might have overlooked (read: completely ignored) the logistics of this proposal.
Still, isn’t it true that we value something more if it isn’t permanent? A sunset wouldn’t be the same if it lasted all day. An NCAA championship wouldn’t be quite so epic if it was guaranteed to happen. Even OnlyBurger wouldn’t be as sweet and juicy if it was there whenever you wanted it.
With graduation fast approaching, it’s all too clear that college doesn’t last either. Once all the diplomas are passed out and all the good-byes are said, there’s no telling when, or if, we’ll see each other again. All relationships, for that matter, are eventually going to end. Faced with this painful truth, we can either wallow in self-pity or adopt what the two of us like to call the OnlyBurger philosophy.
In the chaos of everyday life, it’s easy to look at other people the way many of us look at campus eateries. (Think metaphor, not cannibalism.) Too often, we take them for granted. However, if we look at others like we look at the OnlyBurger truck, aware that they could disappear at any time, we realize how important it is to savor every second.
Second semester senior year is a time to relish every last moment we have together. But it is by no means the only time. Whether we’re seniors or freshmen, why not live as if today was our final day together? After all, for all we know, it could be.
Rachel Willcutts
Trinity ’11
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