Last night, I got two hours of sleep, after eating nothing all day because I was too busy attending my six classes, reading six books and writing three papers for each of them and attending meetings for each of the half-dozen student organizations I run. Oh, I also ran six miles. And tonight, I plan to knock back Busch Lights until I black out to make up for last night's lack of sleep.
Does this sound like a realistic day to you? It shouldn't. Unfortunately, this hyperbole isn't too far off from what some Duke students think they can cram into 24 hours.
Gotta breathe, gotta eat, gotta sleep. Oxygen, energy, rest. These are our lives' building blocks. Without them, our bodies cease functioning. These are the rules by which the rest of society plays, but apparently college students at an elite university think they can do just fine without the latter two (they admit defeat on the first count). Many think they actually thrive in such conditions of scarcity. Why else would I routinely overhear some students bragging about how little sleep they've gotten?
This valuing of asceticism in pursuit of excellence (or at least survival) in our academic and extracurricular pursuits complements a culture of excess in our social affairs. And thus, the "work hard, play hard" ethos is born.
Although this aspect of campus culture has been endlessly rehashed in the last few semesters, I think we've overlooked a major contributing factor: We simply do not value well-being or moderation in our community or as individuals. Though the administration may pay lip service to such ideas through the support of programs like the Oasis, one only needs to get on the weeks-long waitlist for a counselor at CAPS to know that such programming is merely a band-aid for a much larger wound within our community.
So why is self-deprivation valued above self-care? Some might argue that our sacrifice of sleep and other creature comforts is altruistic; there are simply not enough hours in the day to make our requisite difference in the world and do all our readings for class tomorrow.
But can't we best serve others when we're clear-headed and energized? Being a good person doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. You can do good and be well at the same time; they aren't mutually exclusive.
The competitive nature that drove us all here in the first place probably plays into this phenomenon as well. We compete for grades, jobs and guys, so it's only natural that we also want to beat our neighbors at I-got-less-sleep-than-you or I-have-more-papers-than-you.
This is the same instinct that collectively drives us to start a new student organization every 10 seconds and propels many of us, including yours truly, to ever more exotic locales for study abroad and summer projects. Obviously, the main reason I studied abroad in Cameroon last fall was so that one day, I could write about my adventures with exotic diseases and latrines in a Chronicle column and let the world know how hard-core I am. Duh.
But the competitive spirit alone can't explain some of the crazy things we do. Maybe some people actually do thrive off of no sleep; it's possible their lives are one big adrenaline rush. These are the same people who say when you graduate from college (or, alternately, die), you won't look back and wish you had slept more. But aren't quality of life and sheer quantity of life two different things? I would argue that the people who sleep more are better able to fully embrace and enjoy the waking portion of life than the people who are only semi-conscious through it all.
And still others truly think they're invincible, which must be a great feeling-until it wears off and you end up shaking from caffeine dependency and sleeping through your seminars. The dichotomy of deprivation and excess discourages open dialogue about our limits as human beings, but we all know somebody who couldn't subsist for four years on a diet of booze and coffee.
Regardless of its origins, the low status our campus culture gives well-being harms the community at large, as demonstrated by the oft-noted abuse of Adderall on campus.
"Work hard, play hard" is not a sustainable lifestyle; to adapt the DukePlays slogan, why not give "work well, play well" a try?
Rachael Massell is a Trinity senior. Her column runs every other Monday.
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