What I Learned This Year: Student decides not to live by color

In this digital age, it is so easy to think that every moment has to be filled. I open up iCal and see colored spaces (time devoted to classes and other activities) and white spaces (free time). This semester, my personal goal seemed to be playing with the calendar as though I were the colored team and the computer was the white team. Objective of the game — fill in as many spaces in color and leave as few white as possible. This created a daunting semester, one where I was running from one room to another, constantly preparing for another performance, another presentation or another meeting. People would ask, “Hey, can you do this?” or perhaps a professor might say, “I think that you should do this,” and I would look at the calendar, see a white spot and say, “Sure, I can do that, too.”

I learned this year that this calendar game is a silly one. As visually relaxing as it might be to see only the pink (classes) or red (SGA) or orange (work) colors all over my calendar, it makes daily living incredibly stressful. The funny thing about running from one event to the next is that you really don’t truly experience the event you’re participating in or the emotional meaning of it. Next year, my goal is to change the rules of the game — to spend less time doing and more time living. I may lose the calendar game and will see less color on my calendar, but will certainly have a fuller and more meaningful lifestyle because of it.

– Anthony Baron,

Junior voice & piano performance major