With 364 days left until next Christmas, I sit cross-legged on my bedroom floor, which is strewn with Christmas presents, books and scattered pieces of laundry. The time has come to clean out my backpack for spring semester, a task I enjoy because it feels like I’ve reached a milestone. I’m turning the page on the past and looking forward to something new. To start, I unzip the main pouch of my backpack and slide out the five-subject notebook I used for my fall classes. Flipping through the pages, I notice that towards the end of each subject, bright colors wink out at me. I pause, stop flipping and land on a page of philosophy notes dated from early December.
Emblazoned across the top of the page is a highlighter-yellow declaration covered in curlicues: “17 days til Christmas break!” I turn the page, amused, and find myself staring at a veritable art piece of pen-illustrated Christmas paraphernalia sprawling across the header. Wedged between a gingerbread house and a criminally neon green Christmas wreath is a pink drawing of a calendar which reads triumphantly, “15 days til Christmas break!”
Looking down at my handiwork, I wonder what I’ll decorate my notes with now that Christmas break is over. Spring break, maybe? My birthday? Surely I have more to look forward to before that. There are other things — vacation next week, dinner with my friends, the first day of new classes, to name a few. It makes me realize how often I find myself defining my life by the passage of certain events. I constantly tell myself I just have to make it through “x” to get to “y” — finish my exam on Thursday, for instance, and then I can enjoy the weekend. But what happens before and after those events? Is it just meaningless time spent waiting for the next big thing to happen?
In reality, the majority of life is not spent in the momentous events we find ourselves constantly anticipating; it consists of the many small moments in between. If we were to document how we spend every minute of every day, it would be obvious how much time is actually spent doing simple, ordinary things like sleeping, studying, eating and catching up with friends. This is true for most of us at Notre Dame. Even those of us with extremely busy lives are not constantly being bombarded with exciting new experiences. So why do we hyperfixate, then, on chronological markers that seemingly mean so little in the broader context of our lives?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that we crave excitement and reprieve from the monotony of daily life. Especially at Notre Dame, one of the most prestigious universities in the country, it can be difficult to face the daily grind without something to look forward to as motivation. Unfortunately, living for escapism doesn’t lend itself to things like productivity, mindfulness or personal growth — all of which are deeply essential to life as a student. In fact, a deadline-oriented mentality actively degrades these qualities by forcing us to live in the past or the future rather than the present.
Clearly, there is a danger in living from deadline to deadline. Although we all do it, we know spending the entire week counting down the days until Friday is a bad way to live. If we hyperfocus on the big things, we fail to take advantage of the present moment and miss out on the opportunities it has to offer. We begin treating life as a huge to-do list, scrambling to finish things just for the sake of being done. Each day is a gift full of ways to better ourselves and bring joy to others, but it’s hard to realize that when we’re rushing through the day as quickly as possible to get to the next “good” thing.
It’s also an unbalanced way to live. I spend much more of my time studying at school than I do celebrating the holidays at home, for example, so it doesn’t make sense to devote a disproportionate amount of my thoughts and energy to the latter. Doing so prevents us from succeeding in the little things, which — much more than the big things — truly have the power to shape our lives.
So, how should we fix this mentality? Live in the present. Romanticize the ordinary. Love the simplicity of life and embrace the “dull” moments, learning to see God in everything. When we cultivate a perspective of joy and beauty, a sunset or a morning cup of coffee becomes just as exhilarating as a weekend trip with friends. Each moment becomes a precious gift, filling our lives with countless opportunities.
We don’t need deadlines to drive us forward. We only need to realize that every page in life deserves to be decorated so that, at the end, when we flip through the sheets of paper, we will see a kaleidoscope of colors — the mark of a person who took advantage of every moment.
Noirin Dempsey is a freshman from Lake Geneva, Wisconsin currently living in McGlinn Hall. When she’s not studying English and journalism, she can usually be found playing piano in the McGlinn chapel, wandering the snack aisle at Trader Joe’s or watching the Chicago Bears lose football games. You can contact Noirin at ndempsey@nd.edu.
