Last Thursday, I went from class to practice to class with filmmaker Adelina Anthony to class to office hours to dinner with Colgate’s President Brian Casey to a lecture by Dr. Bettina Love to Donovan’s Pub Trivia. Yeah, it was a pretty busy day, but it honestly wasn’t that much busier than a typical day in the life of a Colgate student. However, it stuck out to me for a couple of reasons.

First, I didn’t have nearly enough time for the evening events I went to. While I’ve had to make tough decisions in the past about which of multiple conflicting events to attend, this time was different in that I felt as though I had to attend everything. I was able to, but I had to leave my dinner early and arrive late to trivia. I’m one of those really punctual people so I found myself annoyed that I had so many obligations that I couldn’t possibly give each its due time. However, I very quickly realized what a privilege it is to have so many phenomenal events happening on campus that every minute of my evening was filled with something incredibly meaningful hosted by Colgate.

Something that filmmaker Adelina Anthony told my class that day was that our time on this campus is precious. That statement couldn’t have been timelier falling on one of those days that I’ll never be able to replicate once I’ve left Colgate. There are so many opportunities here to learn, grow, laugh, question, and consider. All of the professors and administration here know that, and while Adelina Anthony said it most directly, the same thing was alluded to by President Casey and Dr. Bettina Love. I’m sure that we’d get the same vibe from every faculty member we encounter if we view everything we do here as an opportunity and not as an obligation.

Second, something every event had in common last night was an element of personal storytelling. This is something that many of us either are uncomfortable with doing or do not listen closely enough to hear. When we go to lectures and guest lectures, it seems obvious that we can learn from these people, but I think we oftentimes forget that they are in fact, people. While we are privileged to be surrounded by some of the brightest minds in the country, we are perhaps more privileged to get to know these people and what motivates them and where they come from and where they want to go. Adelina Anthony gave us the artistic advice that everyone will be able to connect to stories that we share if there is a common human element to them, and that people will enjoy our stories if we include specific personal details. This advice can and should mediate the way we speak to and listen to everyone we meet, especially on college campuses.

I heard personal anecdotes from Adelina Anthony, President Casey and Dr. Love, and then went to trivia where I got to add to my own story by spending quality time with some of my closest friends. The cool thing about storytelling is that it’s nearly impossible to listen to the stories of others without considering your own story. As a result, while we’re here on campus, if we truly listen to learn about the amazing people we’re surrounded by, we’ll simultaneously learn a lot about ourselves. While we may need to know thousands of years or history or philosophy or how to conduct a laboratory experiment when we leave here, we will benefit even more so if when we leave here we know ourselves.

President Brian Casey switched career paths from being a Wall Street lawyer to get to where he is now, and the way he did so was by taking time off to “learn one true thing about [himself].” It’d be much easier for us to learn one true thing about ourselves now than to find ourselves in self-ignorance in the future.