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Thursday, May 6, 2021
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
OPINION

I

’ll 
be 
honest, 
I’ve 
never 

understood the hype around 
space. 
While 
everyone 
in 

kindergarten ran around saying that 
they wanted to be the president or an 
astronaut, I sat quietly, ashamed that I 
aspired to be a teacher. Our dreams have 
inevitably changed since then, and as 
a third-year Business student, I — like 
many of my peers — don’t really know 
what I want to be. What I do know is 
that I still don’t want to be an astronaut; 
my sensitive stomach can barely handle 
a midnight Taco Bell run.

However, for those interested in 

space travel, the job market has never 
been better. We are amid a space 
travel renaissance, fueled by the rise of 
commercial players like SpaceX, Blue 
Origin and many small competitors 
with big ideas that receive NASA seed 
funding. And, with the Perseverance 
rover recently landing on Mars and 
NASA’s modern moon mission, Project 
Artemis, in the works, there are billions 
of dollars in government contracts 
available. This points to promising 
futures for aerospace engineers looking 
to make their marks at companies 
like Lockheed Martin or Boeing. The 

excitement has even spread to the 
military ranks, as repeated calls for “the 
next class of astronauts” have amplified. 

And you know that where there is 

excitement, there is money; and where 
there is money, there are Wall Street 
investors ready to lose it. Enter: Virgin 
Galactic.

In 2004, Virgin Galactic was founded as 

an extension of the Virgin Group, funded 
by British billionaire Richard Branson, with 
the mission of fulfilling the long-awaited 
fantasy of consumer space travel. They 
initially predicted that they would make 
history by 2009, taking customers on 
space flights. However, the company took 
until 2019 to actually make history, but it 
wasn’t by being successful in their mission. 
In fact, they were quite far from it, coming 
off of several failed space flights despite 
Branson’s repeated bullish predictions. 
Instead, they made their mark by 
becoming the first publicly traded space 
company through a merger with a special 
purpose acquisition company, usually 
referred to as a SPAC.
I

t’s after midnight and the 
textbooks haphazardly 
thrown around your desk 

are illuminated only by the 
computer screen you’ve been 
staring at all day. Empty Monster 
Energy drinks line the table beside 
you and you sigh: “Tomorrow, I’m 
getting ice cream. I deserve to treat 
myself.” 

This year, arguably more so than 

years past, the so-called “treat 
yourself culture” has expanded far 
beyond what was once a reward-
based mentality, where we used 
self-assurance to continue grinding 
through some sort of undesirable 
task. 
Now, 
the 
vernacular 
of 

“treating 
yourself” 
has 
become 

less about rewards and more 
about stress-induced indulgence. 
However, this growth mindset is a 
reflection of something deeper; it 
represents the more deep-seated 
issues with the stress we — students, 
adults and even children — regularly 
put ourselves under. Instead of 
feeling the need to constantly “treat 
ourselves,” perhaps we need to 
instead incorporate more into our 
daily lives that serves us.

This “treat yourself” culture is 

not something that has to be viewed 
as the antithesis of “hustle culture.” 
In fact, I think that is the root of 
the problem entirely. We have been 
bred to believe that if something 
is not amounting in trials and 
tribulations, 
then 
it 
isn’t 
hard 

enough work or we should be doing 
more. Especially at a top university 

like the University of Michigan, I 
constantly 
find 
myself 
wanting 

to do more. I want more credits, a 
higher grade point average and 
more responsibilities I’ll later use 
as conversation topics in interviews. 

This innate drive is by no means 

a bad thing. We all are trying to 
eventually land in a place where we 
can relax and live a more enjoyable 
life. However, there are a lot of 
problems with this logic. Without 
sounding completely hopeless and 
pessimistic, it is possible that the 
future we envision in our twenties 
will not come to fruition. Instead, it 
is important to incorporate things 
that make us happy within the ebb 
and flow of work, school or life-
induced stress. 

Psychology certainly supports 

this 
notion. 
Lauren 
Geall, 
a 

journalist for Stylist, discussed a 
new, related study in a recent article. 
Something that really resonated 
with me from the piece was this 
line: “The results (of the study) 
were clear – while having good self-
control was positively associated 
with happiness, being able to 
indulge in life’s little pleasures 
without 
berating 
ourselves 
for 

doing so is just as important.” 

This reminded me of the Marie 

Kondo ideology or the KonMari 
method, but applying it to far more 
than decluttering. Maybe in order 
to truly treat ourselves, we should 
be actively engaging in more things 
that spark joy. For example, even if 
you have a hectic schedule of work 

and school, make time to stop by 
your favorite coffee shop or allot ten 
minutes to go on a walk outdoors. 

This past year has proven an old 

saying to be scarily true. The saying 
goes: “live every day as your last, for 
you never know what tomorrow 
will bring.” Waking up to a world 
in lockdown is not something that 
any of us could have imagined. In 
a flash, the world was closed for 
business, everything kept at a six-
foot distance and away from arm’s 
reach. We all leaned on each other 
through technological and virtual 
means to keep afloat amid a time 
where isolation and fear reigned 
supreme. I was recently able to get 
fully vaccinated and the feeling 
I had was incomparable. It was 
almost as if every stress or bout of 
anxiety suffered throughout the 
past year had all combined and been 
washed away with the second shot 
in my arm. The world is far from 

To infinity and beyond: the false 
promise of space

“Treating yourself” shouldn’t be a special occasion

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back to normal, but the future is far 
brighter than it was not so long ago. 
This reflection has even further 
deepened 
my 
newly 
adopted 

philosophy of finding a middle 
ground between “hustle culture” 
and “treat yourself culture.” 

I cannot urge you, without 

being a hypocrite, to give up your 
late nights of studying, Monster 
Energy drinks and all (although, I 
actually prefer Bang Energy these 
days). I cannot, in good conscience, 
tell you to always choose to do 
something that makes you happy 
over something you have or should 
do. Frankly, this is just not the way 
life works. We have to endure the 
hard work and put in the time. If 

nothing else, it is a reminder that 
we are human. Like Lois Lowry’s 
“The Giver,” without pain, we’d also 
lose ecstasy and joy. It’s all about 
balance. And as the semester comes 
to a close and the Zoom meetings 
end, I encourage you to look back 
on what was arguably the weirdest 
year of our lives so far. 

Think about what made you 

stress. Think about what and who 
you leaned upon to alleviate some 
of that stress. As we enter normalcy 
step-by-step, I plan to try and find 
the gray area between hustle and 
indulgence for the year ahead. I will 
work hard and certainly have days 
that are nothing but stressful. 

However, instead of looking at 

everything I choose as a way to 
combat the stress as something 
to “treat myself,” I want to do 
things and choose things that 
provide me some form of happiness 
more 
regularly. 
Imagine 
how 

much happier we could be if the 
breakfast we ate with our morning 
coffee could be viewed as treating 
ourselves. 

In a very real way, this is 

genuinely 
true. 
Let’s 
find 
our 

middle ground and collaboratively 
try to make treating ourselves a 
far more common practice in the 
chaotic lives we lead. 

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