By Aliza Billet, Arts and Culture Editor
This week, I was doom-scrolling on my phone, looking for silly posts to share with friends. I wanted to find a little bit of levity to lighten the gloom of everything we see on social media. Eventually, the following post caught my attention:
“Every time I do some weird new thing like an art or a sport I think ‘Man wouldn’t it be crazy if I was just some natural prodigy at this and I never knew till now’ and not only does that not happen but I am significantly worse than the other beginners.”
Obviously, HowlingMutant0 meant that tweet as a humorous addition to the never-ending flood of word vomit that hits the presses of social media daily, and it worked, initially; I smiled at the relatability. Upon further pondering, however, I realized that the tweet spoke to a greater problem I find myself noticing more and more often nowadays: it seems as though people are reluctant to put work into doing things, even if that work will ultimately lead to improvement in their lives. Instead, they look for the easy way out, intending and expecting to succeed on minimal effort.
YU is not immune to this phenomenon. I constantly hear students recommending classes and professors based solely on the idea that they are “easy As,” which actually translates to “mind-numbingly boring, with professors talking to a wall, because the students would rather sit and watch the seconds tick by than participate in the conversation.” What a waste of time and tuition money; are we not here to learn?
One of the strengths of YU is that the nature of it as a smaller school means the classes are also smaller, and often more discussion-based. The voices of the students matter, the professors know our names, and — within the framework of class topics — the learning can almost always be tailored to the areas we are interested in. What a privilege, and yet it is one lost on so many students, who would rather let the semesters pass idly by, rather than put in a little bit of effort to come out of YU with something more than a diploma.
Perhaps this desire we have to achieve excellence without actually doing anything to deserve it stems from the ease with which we can access things nowadays. Anything we can possibly want requires no effort whatsoever to acquire; it can be sent to us with a few clicks. Not only that, but we are constantly overstimulated by flashing images and sounds from our screens, so much so that even the act of reading a novel sometimes feels tedious. Social media itself is currently undergoing a transformation in which text is being replaced with video footage, which takes less effort to consume. And where does this leave us? On Twitter, lamenting the fact that we are not good at things we’ve never even tried. That’s fine for HowlingMutant0, but I don’t want my life to go that way.
That’s not to say I’m sitting on some high horse, judging everyone around me while claiming to be removed from the issue; I too am guilty of taking the easy way out. In classes, I find myself choosing unexciting essay or project topics because I know they’ll be easier to write, even though the tradeoff is that they’ll be boring and I won’t actually be proud of them. I definitely spend too much time on my phone mindlessly scrolling rather than getting out of my dorm and taking advantage of all the opportunities New York City has to offer. However, I can say that I am working to change this passively-living aspect of my reality.
A concrete example of this change came over the summer, when I decided, after many years of saying it was too hard, I was finally going to become a consistent runner. It was hard. Every time I came back from a run, my brain screamed that that was the worst experience of my life. However, I was also filled with a true sense of pride. Not only had I succeeded in running however much I had – allowing myself to accept all progress, no matter how small – but I succeeded because of effort on my part.
Now, only a few months later, I run 5Ks for fun and I even enjoy myself doing it. There is always improvement to be had, but the point is that I’m no longer scared of working to succeed at my goals. In fact, I’m excited to do so, because wouldn’t you know it, acknowledging that you’ve deservedly succeeded at something fills you with the kind of feeling of accomplishment not found when that thing is handed to you, or took minimal effort on your part to achieve.
So, as easy as it is to just float by in life, it is equally easy to find opportunities in which to put in some effort in order to achieve more. There are so many clubs at YU which are happy to have new members. You can’t go wrong by reaching out to a friend and making plans to visit a museum, or go to a new park, or do anything the city has to offer. With registration for next semester’s classes right around the corner, I intend to spend more time thinking about which classes I’ll enjoy most, and which will be satisfactorily intellectually challenging. Even if they might not fit like puzzle pieces into a perfect schedule, and might even (gasp) be a little difficult, we’re only here for so long, so why not put in a little more effort to learn all that we can, and enjoy doing so?
They say to work smarter, not harder. But I think there is also something to the idea that working harder can make you smarter.
Photo Caption: 245 Lexington Avenue on the YU Beren campus
Photo Credit: Emily Goldberg