100%

Scanned image of the page. Keyboard directions: use + to zoom in, - to zoom out, arrow keys to pan inside the viewer.

Page Options

Download this Issue

Share

Something wrong?

Something wrong with this page? Report problem.

Rights / Permissions

This collection, digitized in collaboration with the Michigan Daily and the Board for Student Publications, contains materials that are protected by copyright law. Access to these materials is provided for non-profit educational and research purposes. If you use an item from this collection, it is your responsibility to consider the work's copyright status and obtain any required permission.

February 18, 2015 - Image 14

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Michigan Daily

Disclaimer: Computer generated plain text may have errors. Read more about this.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015 // The Statement
7B

Personal Statement: Disappointment

by Michael Sugerman, Daily News Editor

I

t’s 2:50 a.m., and I’m sitting in front of my computer. To
my right sits an empty bag of nacho cheese Doritos and a
bottle of diet Mountain Dew. I have a novel to start and

finish reading in the next eight hours. It’s go time.

Nights like these aren’t entirely irregular for many college

students — running off fumes from the pre-packaged rocket
fuel dispensed from vending machines, rushing to finish
neglected schoolwork last minute.

I’m going to be honest: I hate that we live this way. And I

say “we” because I know I’m not alone.

One glance at Yik-Yak is enough to tell me that I’m not the

only one who procrastinates; I’m not the only one who feels
lonely sometimes; I’m not the only one without a clue as to
what I want to do “when I grow up”; and I’m certainly not the
only one who is becoming increasingly aware how quickly
time goes by and how little control I have over it all.

____________________

During the Fall 2014 semester, I took Political Science 315:

Media and Public Opinion. The class was a crash course in
understanding the psychology behind media persuasion,
specifically through the lens of political campaigns.

One of the biggest topics of the course was this idea of

“mortality salience.” Mortality salience is, essentially, the
knowledge that one day, we are all going to die.

In the political sphere, this manifests itself in how we

choose our leaders: because we’re doomed to death, while
we’re alive, we look to the people who are going to keep us
safest for guidance.

I understood the term’s application in the context of our

course. But it resonated with me because for a while now,
I’ve felt that time is going by faster and faster, and as a result,
my mortality salience has skyrocketed.

All of this, I think, is just a part of growing up. And that’s

what I really, really fear — that the older I get, the faster time
will speed by. And that sensation isn’t helped by junk food-
powered all-nighters that seem to make each day blend into
one murky continuum, in which there is no time to pause and
simply take it all in.

The astronomy class I’m in right now has also made me

realize just how insignificant this all is. We live on a planet
hurtling around a star, and that star is one of billions of stars
hurtling through the galaxy, and the Milky Way is one of bil-
lions of galaxies in a universe that is slowly expanding every
day. Relative to everything there is, we are equivalent to a
fraction of a grain of sand.

If we’re so insignificant, and one day each of us is des-

tined to simply … cease … then what’s the point? I guess I’m
just a little bit sad, that’s all. Or rather, I feel really over-
whelmed.

Overwhelmed by the day-to-day stuff that seems so

important — grades and internship applications — and over-
whelmed by how unimportant some of it is in the long run.

I realize that the most important thing is to recognize

that, because time is limited, we must make the most out of
every day. But therein lies another problem: I recently con-
sidered the idea that I haven’t been putting my all into every-
thing I do.

In my first semester of college, I was a straight-A student.

I was confident in my academic abilities. The full effort? It
wasn’t there, but it didn’t need to be. I was cruising, and cruis-
ing felt good. I was writing for the newspaper, and that felt
good. I was struggling socially, but talking to my high school
friends on a regular basis was a remedy for that. Eventually,
that struggle disappeared. Everything was, overall, okay.

But things aren’t as “okay” now. The more courses I’ve

taken, the more I’ve become aware of the fact that I don’t
know exactly what I’m passionate about. And because I don’t
know what I’m passionate about yet, I worry that I’m wasting
my time in some classes where the fire hasn’t been ignited.
That’s a terrible feeling, and subsequently, I try to avoid it.

The hardest part is, this whole college thing — I’m sup-

posed to make some kind of return off the investment, right?
And the investment is so much more than prioritizing the
newspaper over class, surfing the Internet for hours and hid-
ing behind the façade that I don’t have enough time for the
homework. The reality is that I’m just not making time for it
because I don’t know what I want and that scares me.

____________________

I was an anxious kid. I’d get restless, panicked and even

nauseated just by sitting in the same place for too long. I was
also very idealistic: I had a vision for how the world should
work, and when people failed to meet my expectations, I very
easily became disappointed and frustrated. It wasn’t fair,
but when people didn’t agree with me, I saw it as a personal
affront.

So when, as an undersized fifth grader, pamphlets were

presented to me in class about the dangers of drugs and
alcohol, they really got to me. I went home crying that day,
worried that there were substances that could impair my
judgment and risk my safety.

I was doubly appalled that, in the vague but not-too-dis-

tant future, at least a handful of my friends would apparently
be doomed to use these “scary” substances — and would sub-
sequently pressure me to join them.

My heart would beat faster even when my parents had

even one glass of wine at home — I didn’t want them to get
drunk. Even after they explained to me that alcohol con-
sumption is nuanced, and responsible adults know not to
drink in excess, it took a while to sink in.

By high school, little had changed. Some of my friends

began drinking and smoking, and I was not subtle in my dis-
approval. I avoided weekend parties at all costs, because A: I
feared that I’d be unwittingly presented with substances, and
B: I worried that I’d be too uncomfortable to enjoy myself.

When I got to college, part B held true. During Welcome

Week of my freshman year, I found myself in the basement
of a fraternity house. I hadn’t wanted to go, but a friend had
suggested it and I figured that if college was about getting
out of one’s comfort zone, I might as well give it a try.

After telling the drunk student manning the door that my

friend Joe and I were “definitely going to rush” in order to
gain entry, I stepped into a nightmare. The house was dimly
lit by colored strobe lights. It reeked of marijuana and ciga-
rettes. The floor was wet with spilled beer and cheap vodka.
Red Solo Cups lined fold-out tables in the foyer, along with
half-consumed handles of liquor and chaser.

I couldn’t hear my friend above the music, which was

so loud that I could feel the bass reverberating through my
body. There were so many people packed into the home that
there was little to no room to move. It was very humid. Less
than 10 minutes after arriving, I left.

I got drunk for the first time at a friend’s house toward the

end of my first semester, sharing a case of Hamm’s beer —
the cheapest and crappiest we could find — with three other
guys. I had decided that if drinking was part of the process of
becoming a college student, I was going to do it with a small
group of people in a comfortable, contained setting. Here’s
what shocked me: I liked the buzz. I liked how it felt. And
liking it made me feel guilty.

____________________

We come into college believing that it’s where we’re going

to find ourselves, make our closest friends, and have this
epiphany where we realize our higher calling and pursue it
with gusto. On top of that, I personally came to college with
naïve notions about the “evils” of drinking and fears about
other substances that I’ve since tried.

So far, I’ve found that the idealistic, picture-perfect ver-

sion of things doesn’t hold true. That’s what really gets to
me. Because right now, the 10-year-old version of myself who
wanted to be an author (or a professional baseball player) and
thought that he’d never touch an alcoholic beverage is kind of
disappointed in me. I get that it’s not rational, but I still feel
that disappointment, and I’m deeply conflicted by it.

The point here, going back to the beginning, is that I know

I’m not alone. And I just wish people would talk about this
more, beyond the confines of an anonymous mobile social
media application. It’s the same logic behind the reason I
love listening to melancholy Jackson Brown ballads when
I’m feeling down: I’m comforted by the fact that someone
else has, at one time or another, shared whatever pain I feel.

We need to be more honest — the world isn’t always

everything it’s talked up to be, but that’s okay. Frequently I
feel shackled by either fear of what the future holds or my
childhood idealism. But I’ve learned it’s about being in the
moment. I just don’t want that moment to end.

ILLUSTRATION BY MEGAN MULHOLLAND

Back to Top

© 2024 Regents of the University of Michigan