Everyone at PA knows one of those students who is a member of 25 different clubs, does 500 hours of community service a week, has 10 senior board positions, and brags about how few hours of sleep they get. This kid never has free time, never relaxes, watches a movie, plays video games, or reads a book. They never take a break. And yet this is the same kid who always talks about how he needs to do even more and how everything he does is just another step towards getting into College #1. Unless he becomes Senior Chairman and Executive Officer of Finances of Sums Less Than or Equal to $15 of the Avifauna and Small-beaked Yellow Woodpecker of Eastern West Swahili Society, his life is doomed to fail. Despite this kid’s “amazing feats,” he is not the kind of student we want to be. Far more impressive is the student who has his few clubs that he likes, his certain sport, his “little group of things.” This student has spare time, enjoys simply hanging around with friends, sleeps more than five hours a night, and occasionally spends time doing nothing at all. He does not care if he has some meaningless board title associated with a club. His mind is not already made up about what he wants to be, nor where he wants to go to college. He chooses what he wants to do not because it would impress a college but because he honestly enjoys doing it. Some might call him a dilettante, but he enjoys the things he does, and more importantly, he enjoys his free time. His life is not part of some grander picture that revolves around College #1, Job #1, or Perfect Life #1. Free time is something to be treasured. We should enjoy the time we have at Andover. It is far too easy to get wrapped up in all the classes, sports, clubs and opportunities that Andover offers, and forget that we are only teenagers. We are constantly encouraged to try new things and pile even more onto our plate, without remembering our limits. The school offers so much that we always take on more than we can handle. And consequently, we lose more and more of our free time. Just as classes and sports are important, free time is as well. No one can be busy from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the week without crashing sometime. Like a reckless teenager with a credit card, it is too easy for us to spend away our time until we are suddenly left with no time, mountains of homework, and far too many commitments. And how do we pay off this debt? We stay up far too late, cut back on sleep, cut back on time with friends and sacrifice important and necessary things. And despite what some people and what the definition of success tell us, enjoying life is far more important than any grade, any club, or any college. Students at Andover often speak as if they already have their lives figured out. They already know exactly what classes, sports, and clubs they want to do. They know where they want to go to college, where they want to work, how much money they want to make, where they want to retire and where they want to be buried. And nothing will stop them from getting there. Granted, some students have their passions and nothing will ever change this, but for most kids, high school is still a period of exploration. There is a reason why we don’t take only math courses or only history courses. Even after we have found our particular interests, it should not preclude us from still looking at entirely new areas. Life is not supposed to be all figured out and all planned at age 16. Most importantly, high school and our time at Andover is not simply a stepping-stone for college. As much emphasis as students, teachers, advisors, college counselors and society put on preparing our applications, applying to and attending only the best and most elite colleges, there are far more important things to spend our time worrying and stressing over. College certainly is important, but it is not our only goal. Why spend all of your time preparing for the future and never enjoy the present? Andover is a unique and great place, and there is absolutely no reason why we should not simply enjoy Andover as such a place. People are often in such a hurry to get into college and to move onward that they realize too late that they have wasted away some of the best years of their life on a new place that did not turn out to be that great. It is a common cliché of Andover to reiterate the need to calm down and enjoy free time, but it is one nonetheless worth repeating. Instead of buying into the vicious cycle of competition, stress, sleepless nights, packed days, bad grades, and little fun, we should all step back and remember a simple truth: we are a bunch of teenagers in high school. Life is not supposed to be this stressful, we are not supposed to already know exactly what we want to do, and everything we do is not supposed to be a piece of some grand puzzle about college and success. To quote a bumper sticker, “life is a journey, not a race.” So next time someone tells you that “the kids who go to the best colleges” do more than 10 clubs, only get perfect grades, only play varsity sports, never relax and never sleep, remember that these kids also never have fun and never enjoy life.
