Column: Custom-fit futures

The bookstore is swamped. I have to trample two international students to grab Global Peace and the American Way, and I almost take someone's eyes out while reaching for The Miracle Worker. As I gaze longingly at A History of 20th Century Footwear, I feel a quick tug on my tote.

It's a girl from an econ class, whose name I never knew. "Hi there!" she says, her smile like syrup. "So," she starts, and I know she needs something. "What'd you get?" I start searching my bag for what I'd just gotten: new lip-gloss from Kiehl's. "No," she corrects me, as I brandish a pot of Raspberry Rose. "What'd you get in class? Like, for your grade?"

Later, my yoga buddy pulls her body into an upright position and grins. "Feel my abs!" she purrs, her pose shifting from cat to cow. "Aren't they harder? I worked out every day over break." She pauses to feel her chi, then whispers, "Did you?" I look down at my stomach, conveniently draped by J. Crew Gym, and silently exhale, all hope of finding inner peace destroyed.

Duke kids are used to competing. We fought hard to get here, and we fight even harder to stay at the top. Whether in class, on the playing field or just playing the field, we vie for everything with throbbing thoughts that say we've got to win. It's great to want to be the best. But what about what's best for us?

"I never thought of that," sighs a friend from home as we cruise down the Mass Pike. "I always assumed, if you had the right boyfriend, the right body, whatever, then you have the right life." She smiles. "There is no 'right life,' is there?" she asks, popping a Coldplay CD into the stereo. "There's only the life that makes you psyched to wake up every morning. I haven't found that one yet."

My friend and I used to think that happiness was like a Barney's shoe sale: You duke it out for the one perfect life the way you scratch and tear your way to one pair of perfect Prada pumps. But there is no one perfect way to be. Everyone's future is a different fit, and it can't run out or go on backorder.

Today starts the Duke rite-of-passage known as rush. Before long, throngs of thongs will flock to West in droves. I remember being a freshman, believing if I didn't join the best group (whatever that meant), my Duke life would be meaningless. Clearly, this isn't true; what's really meaningless is putting other people's ideals and judgments way ahead of your own.

We'll all be fighting for something this semester, be it a grade or a group or even a good night's sleep. Some of us want med school acceptances; some of us just want to be accepted for who we are. It's great to know what our peers doing, but it's also good to find our own roads instead of taking theirs-and trying to take them faster, in cooler cars. Right now, many of us are caught up in being the "right" one or the "best" one. But a big part of college is discovering what's right and best for you. And maybe more of us should start.