Sometimes I worry that our society’s people are slowing losing the ability to communicate that which really matters to one another. With text-messaging, email, and sites like Myspace and Facebook, there’s less of a need to talk in person, and I worry that this is distancing us from our friends and family. I’ve always been a big believer in communication—my mom is a therapist; I learned about sharing feelings early on—and I think that sitting down and talking to someone can solve almost any problem. The problem is that, lately, sitting down and talking seems to be the last thing anyone wants to do. I think it was Hemingway who said only the individual can know his own innermost thoughts and feelings, and I believe that this is true. Perhaps we are all too complicated, on the inside, to ever be completely known by one person, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t share at least a little piece of us. Every person is a complex web of thoughts and opinions and hurt feelings and little moments of happiness, but if one doesn’t share these things then no one will have a hope of understanding him. I have seen so many great friendships broken up this way—a twinge of a misunderstanding morphed into a vast, swollen problem, all because those involved didn’t simply sit down and say, “We need to talk.” One of my friends completely severed her relationship with one of her best friends because neither of them was willing to reach out and share her feelings. One day they had an argument, the next they didn’t say a word to each other. After that every day was the same: silence. And so the friendship ended.
How can people let things like this happen? Why must we be so stubborn, to let such little matters escalate until the drama obscures common sense? Why can’t we just apologize, suck it up when we do something wrong, and move on? Pride is not worth the cost of a friendship. Yesterday I had to apologize to some very good friends of mine because I had made a mistake, or rather, a string of mistakes, or rather, I had been insensitive. I had been insensitive for quite a long time. When my friend finally told me why things had been weird between some of us, I didn’t get defensive, I just apologized and told her I would try to do better. We had a bit of a heart-to-heart—it was lame but it was necessary. When I got home that night, I just thanked my mom for drilling the need to communicate into my head. Sometimes, even close friends can feel like there’s a rough stone wall between them—emotional distance is much more potent than physical distance, but luckily it can be bridged with only a few words. A few honest words. I hope that I can always remember that words, when chosen wisely and honestly, are the most meaningful things in the world. Without them, we would have no relationships, no happiness, no life. Let’s never forget to talk to one another.
There comes a point when anyone, even the most resourceful time manager or the most driven student, needs to throw up his or her hands and say, “Okay, too much; I’m done.” Everyone knows that junior year is supposed to be a stressful one, but with the drudgery of everyday school work and extra-curricular activities plus looming AP tests and college applications, junior year can be more than stressful—it can be overwhelming. What is one supposed to do when a mile-long list of projects, assignments, and goals pile up to the point that there seems to be no way out? It’s so tempting to simply check out and give up, but my gut feeling always tells me that that isn’t the solution—after all, assignments would still accumulate, and the situation would only escalate. So, whenever I’ve been too stressed to function in the past, I have tried to do something productive, like work out or paint. Yesterday, though, I decided that these strategies just weren’t working for me right now. Exercising just felt like more work, albeit in a different form, and painting made my stress even worse—whenever I tried to paint something, it didn’t turn out the way I wished, and so I would put it away, frustrated, and add its completion as yet another item on my to-do list. What was the point of getting away from work by adding more work, even if it was work I enjoyed? I no longer wanted to better myself or push myself; I was, to put it bluntly, sick of being productive.
All of these feelings I shared with one of my friends as were were driving home from going out to lunch. She patiently listened to my complaining, then said that she had an idea to cure my stress. The best way to feel refreshed, she said, was to spend some quality time doing nothing. So, we pulled in to my driveway but didn’t get out of the car; instead, we opened the sunroof, turned on some music, and put the backs of our seats down. Then, we just lay there. We talked about random things but not about projects and deadlines; we stuck our feet out of the sunroof and changed the music if a song was bad. For almost thirty minutes we sat there, not being productive at all and enjoying every second of it. When we finally went into my house, I noticed that my stress had disappeared.
Every once in a while, everyone needs to make the conscious decision to waste time; it clears the head and puts things into perspective. I think that, if we students weren’t always preoccupied with using our time well and being perfect, if we were willing to populate our days with a little inactivity, that we would be happier, more chilled-out people.
