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Class of 2019
In college, there are always people. Libraries, classrooms, and sidewalks are perpetually crammed with bodies. Being alone verges on impossibility when you share a bedroom with a girl and a bathroom with thirty more, but I honestly didn’t notice until it took me half an hour to seek out a quiet place to make a phone call. For some reason, I had taken it all in stride as if it were the way it had always been, or, maybe more accurately, how I had always wanted it to be. I am an extrovert who thrives off human interaction. People actually fuel my energy instead of expending it. So I relish the college atmosphere, where my friends are always mere steps away. Although, I am learning that too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing.
Every night, I go to bed kicking myself for how little of that day’s to-do list I had accomplished and swearing that tomorrow I will lock myself in a library cubicle in hopes of avoiding distraction. And every day, I run into friends that are considerably more welcoming than my work. You can imagine how much I get done. There has not been a day that I have walked into the library with focused intentions and have walked out without a still-heavy load of tasks and someone by my side. It’s a daily cycle of self-frustration, yet I cannot help it. I am addicted to people.
As someone who likes to think they have great self-control, why do I always opt to spend time with people, even those I barely know? Obviously it’s less effort and more pleasant than homework, but wouldn’t the resulting guilt prevent procrastination more than it does? Maybe I’m just attempting to justify irresponsible actions, but I believe that my decision-making goes deeper.
I see people as my education and my fulfillment. One of the greatest educators of our generation – Bill Nye, the Science Guy – once observed, “Everyone you meet knows something you don’t,” and the curiosity that this mentality breeds guides my life. Each and every person holds infinity within themselves, just waiting to be unraveled. Thinking more broadly, getting to know people could even be considered a humanitarian effort because one cannot effectively help humanity if one does not understand it. It’s a public service in a private setting. Yet even more basal than this, I love to love. I give out hugs like candy in a Fourth of July parade because, in the cheesiest of ways, a hug brings two hearts closer together. I aim to be generous with my words of affection, generous with my food, and generous with my love, because lots of love can never be too much of a good thing.
With this great outpouring comes great reciprocation. I love on people, and they love on me. On a graph, time spent together and strength of bonds would be positively correlated. This kind of friendship-building serves as the most sustainable practice on campus because we all push one another to do better and to be better in our humanity; we all sustain one another. So I see this concentrated residential college experience as a form of symbiosis, in that we are all living together for mutual benefit. We live and love and learn… together. Yes, in college, there are always people, but that means that there are always people who are there for you. My priority is purposefully furnishing these relationships in order to make this world (or somebody’s world) a better place. If developing truly substantive friendships means taking a couple hits to my GPA, I will accept the penalty gladly.
Nicole Fielder is a freshman McConnell Scholar from Nicholasville, Ky.