"I only got four hours of sleep last night because I was so busy studying."
"Oh, you're only taking 12 credit hours? I'm so jealous -- I'm taking 16."
"I wish I could relax, but I'm just way too busy with all my meetings."
Phrases like these and so many more seem to be a constant in conversations with my peers. Being busy is seen as valuable, and anyone who isn't stretched thin must just be lazy. Instead of discussing why we're so busy and the potential problems it could cause, we instead use it as a tool to boost ourselves up to those around us.
Personally, I started noticing this trend during my junior year of high school. College was on the horizon for me and my classmates, and we felt like we had to do everything in our power to get into the best colleges. Before we knew it, being well-rounded was synonymous with being busy. This morphed into a sense of competitiveness against our friends. Having a busy schedule wasn't enough: You had to be the busiest.
After moving on from high school to college, I realized that the competitiveness didn't stop. In fact, it got much worse, and so did the bragging about it. College students have a range of responsibilities ranging from schoolwork to a social life. They're expected to handle all of this and make it look easy.
It seems like many of us compensate for the exhaustion we feel from being so busy by bragging about it. We might've had a 15-hour day where we ran around between work, clubs, and school, but being able to brag about how busy we were gives us the rush of feeling accomplished. Once that rush is over, though, what are we really left with? For many of us, we find that the results of this lifestyle are exhaustion, feeling unfulfilled, and having an overused planner.
In addition to hurting ourselves, the culture we've created about being busier than anyone else also hurts those around us. As soon as one person complains about being busy, someone else has a response of how they're even busier. This cycle leads relationships that are based on one-upping each other instead of offering support.
So to combat this problem, I propose this: Instead of bragging about how busy we are, let's focus on bragging about our passions. Instead of overloading our schedules with resume boosters, let's spend our time doing things we actually care about. Instead of running ourselves thin, let's take the time to actually take care of ourselves.
When you look back at your college experience 20 years from now, you're not going to remember the semester that you took 18 credit hours, were on your sorority's executive board, and held a position in a student organization. What you will remember is what you learned and the impact you made on those around you, and that's not something you can schedule in your planner.
