I once heard this place described as an oasis of incredible passion and intimacy — a place to seek clarity like you’ve never seen and aimlessness you never wanted to know was possible. A place to fall in love, develop a much finer sense of how people feel, and experience a spectrum of pure, unadulterated emotion.
This perception of Princeton has always resonated well with me, but still, I worry. With the opportunity to experience life so fully comes the challenge of striking an emotional balance. It’s this dichotomy that makes me so incredibly grateful for my friends, and it’s the reason they refuse to give up on me when I’m in a funk for days at a time.
Naturally, friends will seem to “use” you. They’ll lean on you through an indefinite crisis of theirs, existential or not. They’ll leave you feeling like you’re carrying the burden of the friendship — it’s not true. Good friends are always there for each other. Somewhere down the road, they’ll be around when you need their support. This is what deters me from keeping relationship scorecards on campus.
There’s just one irony: our friends here set a pretty high bar.
We are accustomed to being at the forefront of academic achievement, to running toward the finish line and breaking through the satin ribbon at the end — why stop now? After all, this mindset has carried us all the way to Princeton. Imagine how far it can take us after life in the Bubble, upward on the corporate or academic ladder.
Reality check: Princeton is an exceptionally humbling place. We are among some of the most brilliant minds of our time. Often, this realization inspires and motivates us to try new things. It’ll sway us to join a South Asian dance group, run anything upward of a half marathon or stage a political campaign for the Undergraduate Student Government senate. Other times, it fuels an engine of self-deprecating sentiment. It makes us question whether we’re clever enough to speak in the classroom, diligent enough to lead on the court or wise enough for the Office of Admission to have made the right decision.
I’d be remiss to claim this mentality only exists on campus, behind some definitive boundary. The only physical borders to Princeton I’ve ever seen are the Jewish community’s new eruv and the Alumni Association’s temporary Reunions fences. This mindset proves toxic the second you reckon with the notion of Princeton, and any attempt to uphold it jeopardizes your perception of self-worth.
Despite these challenges, I couldn’t imagine a Princeton without the presence of these incredible minds. They’ve challenged me to reshape my perception of normalcy, pushing my limits to accommodate a larger physical and emotional space. They’ve allowed me to grow vicariously through their semesters abroad, their independent work on a barren glacier or their fellowships dedicated to preservation of New York’s Sixth Borough. They’ve made Princeton a place with which everybody is familiar, a place you’ll assuredly never experience again.
Why is this important?
There’s usually far too much in my head to organize my train wreck of thoughts. Perhaps I’m trying to convince you to be a good friend, attentive and present. Perhaps I’m suggesting you shamelessly self-indulge, vying to experience emotion at every crossroad on campus. In any regard, don’t mindlessly wander down a path that someone successful has already laid down. Explore every temptation, but stay the course.
Yoni Benyamini is an operations research and financial engineering major from Roslyn, N.Y. He can be reached at yb@princeton.edu.
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