NANCY TANG
Gargoyle staff reporter
Posted Monday, Oct. 5, 2009

I'M GLAD TO be back at Uni. It still feels comfortable and familiar.

But although Uni hasn't changed a bit, I can't say the same about myself.

As a freshman here, I ran around involving myself in everything.

I would stress about perfect grades, attend clubs every day of the week, go to basketball practice and dance class, and, on top of it all, I was going to be class president.

Basically, I was your typical, overachieving, sleep-deprived Uni student.

One day, while I was in Shanghai and stressing about not having enough activities, I gained a whole new perspective.

"Why do you have to be such an overachiever?" I asked myself. I immediately tried to come up with some clever, enlightening answer, but I couldn't think of anything to say. I just acted that way because I thought I should.

This realization left me absolutely stunned. The question should have occurred to me long ago, but I hadn't even thought of it. Had I really never taken the time to consider why I was doing all of this?

At Uni, nobody seemed to find it strange that I spent pretty much every minute of my life doing something school-related.

I didn't think anything was wrong with it either, until I realized I couldn't even tell myself exactly why I was doing that which I poured so much time into. I liked all of my activities, but they were consuming way too much of my time and energy, and I wasn't even sure why I was participating in them.

During the year I was not at Uni, I had a lot of extra time on my hands. Instead of piling on the extracurriculars like my old overachieving self would have done, I selected a few school projects that I was really passionate about. I got to be more involved and still had time to have a life.

Not only did this time spent outside of school help me find what I was truly passionate about, it also helped me figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I had devoted so much energy to my perfect grades and extensive résumé, and yet they really didn't set me apart. I realized they didn't do much good for me other than providing a laundry list of clubs for college applications. I had shaped myself into the image of all other typical overachievers.

Some would call the new me a result of mere teenage soul-searching. Others would call me a liberated individual.

I learned a valuable lesson. I shouldn't do anything when I don't know why I'm doing it. It sounds simplistic, but the concept has shaped who I am at the core. Now, I try to do well in school because I spend one-third of my day learning and I should make something of it. I go to my clubs because I care about what goes on in them.

All activities where my reasons just didn't cut it were dropped. I then replaced them with equally productive activities. The difference? I participate in what I truly want to be a part of — not what I think I "should" be a part of, but exactly what I'm passionate about.

I've come back to Uni with an entirely new perspective. Now, I always try to ask myself what good can come from my activities. Being involved in a lot of things isn’t bad when you’re happy with what you’re doing. However, in my case, I learned that it never hurts to be selective.

Note: An earlier version of this column appeared as an entry in the OG Staff Blog.