Libra: The 19th-century American philosopher Henry David Thoreau accomplished a lot. Among his voluminous body of work was "Civil Disobedience," a book that inspired Tolstoy, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In the two-million-word journal he kept for over two decades, he wrote about nature with a precision and care that prefigured modern-day environmentalism. But Thoreau also knew how to relax, and he was free of anxiety about living up to other people's standards of success. He's your role model for the rest of 2008, Libra. May he inspire you to give yourself the slack you need and compete with no one but yourself as you become more of the unique work of art you were born to be.
Since I started working at this new job, I've had a lot of free time. I haven't done anything constructive and I'm worried that I won't have anything to show for this year. I know I sound insane - most people I know would kill to have the whole day free to do whatever they wanted - but I feel like I can't really enjoy this time. I feel guilty because I've thought about getting an internship, taking the GRE, and applying for grad school, but I haven't done anything yet. To be honest, I know I need this year to figure out where I want to go next, but that Type-A voice in my head is always nagging me to be productive.
I had this conversation last year with the other Fulbrighters when we were trying to figure out if doing volunteer work/an internship/a project/whatever (on top of doing the Fulbright) was worth the time & effort. I think a lot of us have been conditioned to live up to some elusive gold standard of achievement, even if we're not really sure what that means. You just have to "do your best" so that the next application you fill out will be impressive. You hear about people who win a Marshall and then a Rhodes and then apply for a Fulbright -- but what does that really do for you in the end? And it's even worse here in Hong Kong, where the kids are drowning in homework and extracurriculars by the time they're six.
I hate to be cynical, though, because I do think the competition can be healthy for a lot of people. It pushed me to apply for a program I didn't even think would accept me, and in the end I've learned a lot about myself and the world. But now I'm stuck with a choice: do I keep pushing and try to climb higher up the ladder, or do I take a year and try to enjoy my free time? I know the decision should be easy, but that's not how I operate.
