We've done well for ourselves

I take issue with all the "work" we are allegedly doing at Princeton. For the physics geeks, no, I'm not talking about force times distance, I'm taking about useful actions taken for reasons other than padding a resume, personal enjoyment or a misplaced sense of pride in being a "hard worker."

To refer to some recent commentary on the phenomenon, one need only allude to David Brooks's infamous article on Princeton students, "The Organization Kid," or open the pages of the 'Prince' where you can sometimes find pieces like Kyle Meng's Nov. 16 column, "Quantity over Quality." There's no denying that the student culture here is based on busyness. I won't say we bustle about campus, but our super-cool flipflop cushioned strides do imply a good amount of self-importance and readiness to complain. The question is, why do we think we're so important? Are we really doing anything that matters to anyone else?

Ask a Princeton student what he's been working on, and it's inevitably either homework or some fancy extracurricular activity. Similarly, when we talk about how impressive someone is, usually it's an allusion to "how much he does" — number of classes, sports practices and social events attended in one 24-hour period, with the less time spent sleeping, the better. Seldom does anyone ever mention having to clean their room or do their laundry as what's really been keeping them from leisure time (although if that's a concern, there's always the student laundry service, a bargain at only a few hundred dollars a semester).

Aside from the epidemic of busyness, I find this admiration of busyness a particularly nauseating form of elevating self-gratification to the level of a real achievement or hardship.

Frankly, this was an attitude entirely alien to me as when I was growing up. "You've done well for yourself" usually had more of an implied criticism than admiration. Here, it's the doing well for ourselves that we brag about and even expect sympathy for when we miss too much sleep in efforts to boost our own grades or social status.

"Man, I was up all night working on my paper!"

"Oh yeah, well I got dragged out to the Street for the whole night. I didn't get back till the sun was coming up!"

The leaders of tomorrow have it so hard these days!

When I was in high school, "work" for school wasn't at all factored into what I was actually doing; that was simply what I was doing for myself, for my own gratification whether or not I viscerally enjoyed it. Similarly, reading was something I did on my own time, no better than watching television or playing video games as far as my utility to people around me. Real work had more to do with taking out the garbage, washing the dishes and grocery shopping for my grandmother. It was what I did for someone other than myself without any reward in mind other than maintaining the status quo. I don't think this impeded my schoolwork, and frankly I want to raise my kids with the same mindset because I don't think the world needs any more people who think they're "working" when the whole world is kissing their bums (and cleaning up after them too).

I'm not calling for anything as radical as incorporating real work into life here — that would be nice, but I've given up using editorials to ask for the impossible. There's too much money floating around for us to be all that useful anyway (although lobbying for a University sustainability coordinator or a ban on investment bank campus recruiting events would be a good start). I can't say I really expect to be working in any real sense of the word for at least another few degrees. However, I don't think honesty at a university is entirely detrimental to the learning environment, and I'd like to see a more realistic attitude around here. Next time someone asks about the bags under your eyes, answer honestly, "I've been spending a lot of time on myself lately." Aileen Nielsen is an anthropology major from Las Vegas, Nev. She can be reached at anielsen@princeton.edu.