A Harvard undergrad discusses the joys of giving up on the ideal of "effortless perfection" that pervades student life there:
Last winter, I had wondered how I could ever reconcile my guilt at having relaxed my work ethic with my certainty that doing so had allowed me to grow in other ways. I had worried about where my duty lay: to Harvard, for offering me an education and paying a great share of its cost; to my parents, for raising me, guiding me, and making sacrifices for me; or to myself, maybe more in need of reflection and friendship than a spotless transcript. Now I realize I was worrying about the wrong "duty." My duty to the world isn’t to be perfect. It is to take care of myself as best I can so I can give back to the world the love and care it has given to me. If slacking off was what I needed to make myself happy and available to help others, then this decision reflected no disrespect for my parents, for Harvard, or for my own work ethic.
Update from a dissenting reader:
As a Harvard alumnus myself (for grad school), the courage of Harvard students never ceases to amaze me. Bravely "letting go" of her pursuit of perfection so she can slack off, get C+'s and help her friends through psychological trauma. Maybe she should just drop out entirely so she has time to save the whole world.
Seriously, I was once a slacker student myself, and have heard (and probably uttered) plenty of defenses of slackerdom, but this one was truly art. Wow, just wow.
Another reader:
I have to respond to the pair of perspectives. The "slacker" Harvard undergrad's attempt to find balance in life doesn't deserve to be so quickly written off as an excuse for laziness. This is not just an Ivy League issue.
I'm a (non-Harvard) law student striving for grades that will make me competitive in the depressed legal market; I also have two toddlers. It's simply not possible to do everything as well as I'd like to, even the important things. The tension between happiness and excellence is one that working parents (aka what most adults become) do their best to navigate every day, even without a cutthroat grading system. For those of us formerly accustomed to prioritizing academic/career achievement above all else, it almost certainly requires making a more holistic assessment of whether we're "slacking," and that assessment is a very personal one.
Last semester, my house was never presentable and my kids got baths twice a week at most. I rarely played with them, and essentially dropped out of my friends' lives. We ate out 2-3 times a week, and I stopped running entirely. I still didn't get an A average. But we managed to avoid home infestations and personal injuries from the mess, I found the best care for my autistic daughter, and made sure the four of us ate dinner together almost every night. Last I checked, my friends are still my friends, and I'm running regularly again. My husband and I agree we have a great marriage, and our kids seem to be happy. My GPA is a B+. The big law firm in DC that pays $120k to start will not be hiring me. But I think someone else will.
Even if one doesn't have family obligations, it can be important to "be there" for close friends, as the Harvard student chose to do. To view that choice as a self-indulgent/important one seems awfully sad. I certainly can't say whether getting C+ grades is part of the "right" balance for her. But life after college is, for most people, a perpetual struggle to find that balance as circumstances change. There are always choices and tradeoffs, and it's healthy to have some understanding of that before you get too far down a career path that requires a balance of priorities that won't let you be happy. I suppose this is my contribution to the whole "having it all" drama of the past weeks as well.
By the way, your blog does a lot to keep me sane. Thank you for doing what you do!
The Dish 