Life Is Short

I am almost positive that every college student in his or her life has done one of the following:

1. Strategically waited to answer a text message: Putting the phone away when the text was received at 12:51 p.m. and promising you won’t answer until 12:56 p.m. and 33 seconds because that’s the perfect amount of time where you still seem interested enough but nonchalant. Because God forbid you show any semblance of actually caring.
2. Avoided someone you know while walking to class: Spotting them from afar and pulling out your phone at exactly the right moment so you look ever-so-engaged and “just happened” to walk right passed them.
3. Ignored another student sitting next to you while waiting for your coffee, sharing an Uberpool or waiting for the professor: Awkwardly looked around while checking your phone every few minutes, afraid to exchange greetings with a stranger.
4. All of the above.

Why are we like this? Is it just our generation that is so terrified of connecting, of engaging, of telling it like it is?

I’ve been on this campus a short six months, but every day I see countless examples of a terrified culture of millennials avoiding important interactions at every turn.

I myself am far from exempt. Just the other day, I spotted a new professor I have but avoided eye contact as we passed, in fear that he wouldn’t remember my name, or that we’d have nothing to say to one another.

This culture is dangerous.

College is the time to engage with everyone you can, to meet people from all walks of life, to be curious and friendly and approachable and to open as many doors as possible for yourself.

Universities have been revered not only as places of higher education but also as places where students have opportunities to frequently engage with one another.

When we pull out our phones instead of introducing ourselves to the person sitting next to us in lecture or when we stifle our thoughts and actions in fear of “coming on too strong,” we are changing the environment of our university to one where students are isolated and uninterested.

We are only limiting ourselves, walking right past opportunity, shutting doors left and right.

So many students here lack a true sense of community, but no one speaks up.

Perhaps this is because we live in a society where it is un-cool to reach out, to be straightforward or to show that you care.

Bart Campolo, the Humanist Chaplain at USC, strives to change this disconnected, unengaged environment. He hosts dinners every Sunday night for students looking for a sense of community to just get together, tell their stories, talk and connect.

It’s so odd that this idea is such a novelty these days – that sometimes it seems downright impossible to “just be.”  

One of my best friends here, freshman Siobhan Boroian, is another student that echoes these sentiments of a detached, careless environment.

Ironically enough, it took us almost all of our first semester to even properly introduce ourselves.

In a freshman seminar class of only 12 people, almost all of us were either too afraid or  prideful to reach out, missing out on what could have been five more great months of friendship.

She and I were talking about this issue the other day and she showed me one of her favorite quotes by a modern day writer, Rachel C. Lewis.

Lewis writes, “I know how it is — we all want to be mysterious. None of us want to get hurt. None of us want to look desperate. So we wait to respond to texts, phone calls, emails … So we say vague, half-statements and expect people to read our minds … But what if we died?”

Yes, it seems a tad dramatic, but sometimes dramatic is what we need to finally hear the message, loud and clear.

This summer I had an ulcer rupture in my stomach and I had to go into emergency surgery. I was as close to being face-to-face with death as I could imagine, but oddly enough it wasn’t until I read the words by this obscure author that I finally understood the message.

As college kids we have potential oozing from our fingertips and opportunity knocking at every door. We are in an environment where exciting people, prospects and chances surround us. But in order to let our environment do us any good, we must live life as straightforward as possible.

We need to stop with the “chill Olympics:” no more avoiding eye contact and stifling introductions and hellos. We can’t be afraid to ask questions, make grand gestures and be candid.

Lewis writes, “There is nothing more risky than pretending not to care. We are young and we are human and we are not as in control as we think we are.”

Maybe it’s not always a matter of life and death, but it is a matter of our present and our future.

What do we want to make of this university environment? How do we want to be remembered and, ultimately, who do we want to be?

There’s no pause button on life, so go say hello to people, ask questions, introduce yourself and answer your texts in the first 30 seconds that you receive them. Do something you’ve always wanted to do.

No one ever remembered anything half-a**.