I’m having one of those weeks. Four midterms, classes as usual, club meetings, this column to write and the pressures of finding a summer internship looming annoyingly in the backdrop of all my thoughts. (Seriously though, people, stop talking about your LinkedIn while I am trying to grind on second floor Perk. It’s distracting, first of all. Besides, those cubicles are supposed to be my safe space. Read: quiet).
It’s been one of those weeks where sleep is just not a priority and, if coffee could be measured in pages, the amount of caffeine consumed would equal the length of all seven Harry Potter books, including that weird spin-off play. Ah, books. I vaguely remember when I had time to read those. Actually, my roommate is in Pratt and finds time to read Jane Eyre every night before she goes to bed, promptly before the stroke of midnight, so if any of you are keeping score of who is winning Duke, it’s her.
As I was saying, this week has been hectic. I’ve barely had time to shower (don’t worry, I’ve managed to fit it in), let alone be social. Most of my interactions have been during rushed meals, rides to class and sporadic whispers around the barriers of Perkins’ cubicles. I’m busy, my friends are busy, and there is a general consensus on Duke’s campus that we can talk when the tides shift and the forceful waves of midterms season creep back towards the sea.
Yet, as Thursday rolled around and conversations about midterm stress melted into the predictable, “are you going out tonight?” I found myself dejectedly shaking my head and listing the remaining exams that sat on the horizon of this week.
There’s a certain pressure on Duke’s campus to do it all. It’s a wild expectation that students can regularly sleep eight hours, dedicate the daylight to classes, homework, exercise, clubs and studying, and then have fun with friends at night. This idealization, though extremely appealing, is precisely that: an idealization. In reality, students are constantly making choices: should I go to sleep now or apply to one more club? Should I get dinner with my friends or take out to the library? If I go out tonight, will I be too tired to work tomorrow?
This is not to say that we can never have it all. There are many weeks where I find myself admiring the success of my acrobatic performance as I carefully tiptoe along the thin line of social yet studious. Often, however, we are faced with the choice between studying or missing out. Especially in this age of social media, which has constructed the notion of FOMO (fear of missing out), the decision to stay in and study instead of have fun with friends can feel like one of great magnitude.
Allow me to paint a picture for you:
As the sun plummets from its throne in the sky and darkness diffuses through the world, the quiet conversations that had once filled the library and helped delay our mountains of work slowly taper off. Many students leave—for dinner, Netflix-binges or a night out—and all that remains is the quiet clatter of computer keyboards under panels of fluorescent lights. It’s 9 p.m. on a Thursday and Snapchat and Instagram begin to electrify with photos and videos, evidence of students rewarding themselves with some relaxation after a long week of working. I know first-hand how distracting this can be. We see our friends smiling widely on social media, hugging and laughing, making what appears to be unforgettable memories. Our minds itch to know the joke that had made everyone laugh in that Snapchat story, our bodies long to dance alongside our friends or to sink into our beds and watch a mindless movie. The work sitting transfixed before our eyes seems increasingly insurmountable. We become painfully aware of the long and boring night that lies ahead. As we try, and fail, to ignore our phones and forget the activity happening outside the walls of the library, a single question burns in our thoughts: how will I ever get anything done tonight?
The truth is that I don’t have the antidote for FOMO. There’s no blueprint that maps out how to enjoy late-night study sessions or to not wish you could accompany your friends on an exciting end-of-the-week adventure. However, my experience—both inside of the library, where I stir in my seat and yearn to be anywhere else, and out—is that you are not alone in this feeling.
At Duke, we are all tasked with finding a healthy balance between school and play, and it is widely understood that we cannot take four nights off from studying each week. We are lucky to live in a place where students have the option and the outlets to unwind, but we are also lucky to be surrounded by people who can sympathize when we are having one of those weeks.
In reality, the nights that appear so unforgettable online, that linger in the forefront of our minds and torment our attempts to prioritize academics, are just regular nights. Social media has the uncanny ability to augment the importance of an event, to gloss a scene with the perfect filter and to make us feel as though we have deeply erred by staying in. It is in these moments, however, when we are scrolling through our Instagram feeds with regret ebbing unrelentingly in our minds, that we must remember these events are not everything.
There will always be more events to attend, more adventures to have. Some of the best memories are made at 12:45 a.m., sprinting from Perkins Library to the Bryan Center garage with your friend in the torrential rain, splashing through puddles in flip-flops and sporting plastic umbrella covers as rain gear. The best friends are the ones who come home at the end of a seemingly legendary night and tell you that you didn’t miss anything.
Listen to them. Be confident in your decision to stay in and work, because only you can determine what is right for you. And, when you are just having one of those weeks, don’t let the façade of social media distract you from important priorities.
Carley Lerner is a Trinity sophomore. Her column runs on alternate Mondays.
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