Making Time for One Another

A few weeks ago, the inevitable happened: a friend approached me and my roommates about giving to the Senior Gift. (Fear not, loyal Crimson readers. This is not another column about the Senior Gift.) Our classmate gave us the big sales pitch for why Harvard deserves our support: the incredible resources, the Faculty, the libraries and labs. And, inevitably, one of my roommates made one of the usual objections, that her friends, not the institution, had made her Harvard years memorable.

Since everything else had gone as expected, I figured that our classmate would give the usual response, that these marvelous friends are themselves products of the Admissions Office. But he surprised me. "Actually," he told us, "If there's one reason that I would avoid giving to the Senior Gift myself, it would be because of the students here. I think they're really smart and interesting and talented, and that's terrific, and I've made some great friends, but I've found that lots of them are so busy pursuing their own success that they never have time for anything else."

Before you dismiss my classmate as a disgruntled cynic, let me tell you that well-liked, upbeat person has spent the past four years in the company of a very happy group of friends-and let me remind you that no true cynic would volunteer for the Senior Gift. Yet what my classmate said was striking in its accuracy, and it made all of us pause to wonder. What, really, will be the legacy of the Class of 1999?

Many of us have spent most of our college years being what we like to call "over-committed"-to classes, to student organizations, to jobs, to everything. But in reality we are more often under-committed, investing too little in our friends and our selves. One of the most common misconceptions around here is that extracurricular activities are important and essential, but stopping to greet a friend on the street is optional. It amounts to an enormously distorted lens through which students determine what's worth doing.

Here's how it works. Let's say you are deeply involved in the Harvard Model Ad Board, and this weekend you have to play the part of a student accused of making prank calls to Menu Man. In the days leading up to the event, every second of your time is filled with mock depositions and practiced forced confessions of your heinous model crimes. You tell yourself that you have only sequestered yourself for legal purposes for the next few days, and that on Sunday you will be back to your normal self. But on Sunday, you have some versions of the Russian Pastoral to prepare for Slavic 158, "Some Versions of the Russian Pastoral," and then Harvard Model PLO is right around the corner. You fall out of touch with your non-Ad Board friends, and while you may have a great coffee date or a leisurely lunch right after Harvard Model PLO, such events have become "breaks," exceptions instead of the rule. Deferring life, a method once used as an emergency plan for desperate situations, has become the normal approach to responsibilities. Slowly, out of habit, you become one of those people who always has a "meeting," who always "has to go soon," who never seems to have time.

But in reality, we all have time, and plenty of it. Try this little experiment. Sometime when you don't have somewhere "urgent" to be, try walking to your destination as slowly as you possibly can. I have tried it, and I have found that the world changes completely. The people in the street, the cars, the buildings and the trees all come into focus. The wind that before had been nothing more than annoying suddenly becomes a carrier for the smell of fresh flowers. Instead of just seeing the giant dump truck blocking your way, you notice the driver's wedding ring and wonder for a moment if he has any children at home. You see something cool in a bookstore's window, and you go in and buy it. You stop to talk to a friend to whom you would normally have been satisfied asking that unanswered question, "What's up?"

But you also notice how many people around you are walking so fast that they might as well be running, how many people avoid making eye contact with you, how many people brush by you as if you weren't there. All of this takes place in less than 15 minutes, the same amount of time that you would have spent checking your e-mail again and again while sequestering yourself in your room or in the Model Ad Board office. The difference is that time goes by much faster when you worry it away.

Still think that you don't have time? If you really can't imagine yourself ever having time truly to enjoy your studies, or your activities, or your friends, remember that you are the person making the choices. If classes are killing you, take something easier, or something different, next semester. If extracurriculars are getting you down, lower your commitment, or drop them. One of the most believed myths around here is that other people, whether your peers or your future employers, will care whether you wrote a thesis, concentrated in Social Studies, participated in at least two extracurricular activities, or served as chair of the Harvard Model Symbionese Liberation Army. The big secret is that almost nobody cares. When asked about the choices they've made, most seniors will tell you that if they could start over, they would change very little. But the only thing many seem to regret is that they were so often on the run.

I don't want Harvard to be a place where we remember our classmates only for their measurable talents. But if we are to find out who they are in any other aspect, we need them to give us their time. Here, then, is my idea for a Senior Gift. The Class of 1999 should make a gift to current Harvard students not only of their dollars, but of their minutes, hours and days.

And when we graduate, we could give the world 1,600 men and women who will not forget to have time for one another.