Your inner Jefferson

Lurking inside us all there is a little Thomas Jefferson reminding that happiness is not exactly an object that it is normally thought of. The “pursuit” is what matters. It does seem like an eminently easy counsel, but it’s actually very hard to live by. \nThis was my main consideration during spring break, and I couldn’t help thinking of the sentiments of E.B. White: “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it very hard to plan the day.” \nOn some reflection, though, I found that this distinction was one without a difference. Enjoying the world and improving it are not mutually exclusive objects; indeed, you cannot have one without the other. \nStriving to improve the world without an eye toward enjoying it will be a self-defeating affair, as well as depriving you of the passion required to be successful in the end. Enjoying the world to the exclusion of a higher calling is ignoble, the kind of living that lets you down the most.\nFor a lot of people, college is about heeding conventions that seem designed to inflict premature heart attacks – or at least to corrode characters. Many seem to have learned nothing except how to avoid (and to repeat) other people’s mistakes. I’m not that fortunate; I’m impulsively curious. I prefer to make mistakes all my own. But this is not an idle use of time, for it molds a unique character. So for me, college life has always been about mastering the art of self-mastery.\nThis must sound tautological, but I’ve found this art is one well worth cultivating amid the stress and strain of life. All I have learned so far is that what you find out about life is almost never what you would have expected. \nI don’t know the shape my next station in life will assume, but I feel more excitement than apprehension on the brink of it. If you are lucky enough to be aware of your passion, and to be the prisoner of it, then you should do all right. Conversely, if you’re simply going through the motions, you should perhaps reconsider and inject some romance into your life. Damn the mortgage.\nIt is time to sum up. This is not about the need to bridge living well and the good life, but to conflate the two. It may sound to those who are immune to this ultimate adventure that all of this is too easy to say. But as a point of fact, it took me the better part of my spring break – and, in fact, my time here – to work it out. \nAnd so, a few years hence, we should all be able to say, without sounding too much like workaholics, that our craft has become our calling and that how we make our living has become what we live for. \nStay on good terms with your inner Jefferson.