Kat's Pajamas

By Kat McGuire

TSC Columnist

I woke up a few mornings ago and realized that my life is not my own - it belongs to my 35 or 40-year-old self.

Perhaps it was last week's Success Fest that spurred this depressing discovery. I attended a seminar on finding an internship and left with that tight-chested, panicky feeling I often get these days when confronted with the idea of that oppressive place: the real world.

I do not want a job. I do not want to shmooze, to network, to pull myself up the corporate ladder by my own bootstraps. I think I'd rather live in a cardboard box at the edge of a forest and eat roots and grubs than work 40 plus hours a week in a cubicle under glaring florescent lights.

If this is all true - and I think it is - then why do I find myself frantically running around all day, every day, attempting to secure my place in this real world? What happened to the teary resolution I made a few years ago after watching Dead Poet's Society? Carpe Diem. What happened to living in the moment?

In high school I knew a boy named Paul who lived almost entirely for his resumŽ. I used to feel such disdain for the Latin classes, the SAT prep courses and the myriad of clubs and organizations he joined merely to look good for colleges. I vowed I would succeed without succumbing to the evils of living a life that is all about rising to the top (wherever that is). So far, I think I have kept this promise to myself - I have never shmoozed. Nevertheless, I still feel as if I, like T.S. Eliot's poem "J. Alfred Prufrock," have measured out my life with coffee spoons.

That is to say, my life is so incredibly stuffed with meetings and work, homework and projects that I sometimes wonder if I'll ever reach this mythical destination in my life for which I seem to be in constant preparation. When I look around, I see that it's not just me. It's everyone who, for example, feels compelled to start thinking about retirement when they are only 20. This seems to be what the real world is all about: living each day for the ones that will follow. Wait 'till you're in a nursing home, then you can relax.

Kat McGuire is a sophomore English/sociology major.