Uncertain employment prospects, finals and the general gloom of Winter Quarter’s encroachment remind me why I love Thanksgiving. Well, I love Thanksgiving for a lot of reasons, but the one that isn’t a side dish is that for one day, we unabashedly focus on the bright spot in a superbly bleak narrative.
Faced with a future in which smallpox, land disputes and nor’easters were the only certainties, the Pilgrims and Indians took some time out to celebrate a good harvest and enjoy a nice dinner. On Thanksgiving we don’t talk about the despair, we remember that we’re all just happy to be here. It’s a lesson worth remembering on a college campus when it seems like we’ll never get through finals just to never get an internship just to never get a job at a time when seemingly no one is happy to be anywhere.
Over the weekend a boisterous game of Jenga quickly deteriorated into a Seinfeld-style “Festivus” airing of grievances, in which four fellow seniors and I lamented our collective unhireability. Right now, even my questionably accurate retelling of the first Thanksgiving might not be enough to pull us out of our wallowing, but pull us out I must. Wallowing is counterproductive. So I’ll turn instead to a more contemporary example, my end-of-quarter road trip back to New York and my parents’ sage driving wisdom.
Each of my parents has a catchphrase that applies to stressful drives and daunting tasks in general. My dad says, “There are a lot of ways to get to the same place.” If traffic on the interstate comes to a grinding halt, I’ll follow my dad’s advice and discover some interesting service roads. If the internship that’s supposed to catapult you to your dream job turns out to be a no-go, you’ll find another way.
Maybe you’re thinking my dad’s zen road trip philosophy is a nice sentiment, but difficult to employ. It’s hard to go with the flow when it seems everyone else is jockeying to beat you to your destination and infect you with their road rage. That’s where my mom’s advice comes in.
When I was a newly licensed teenager, I was petrified at the prospect of navigating the cutthroat hellhole I interpreted to be the streets of midtown Manhattan. Handing me the keys, my mom said, “Don’t look to the left, don’t look to the right, just go.” It’s not helpful to get distracted by all the people who are trying to get into your lane. Getting bogged down in the number of geniuses or cheaters who will screw up the curve for our finals will just take away from our studying time. That’s not to say we shouldn’t help people when we can. Let someone into your lane and stop worrying that everyone else is just waiting to cut you off. With the good karma you rack up, you might just find yourself a parking spot.
With this warm and fuzzy holiday column, I’m not suggesting success comes from permanently clamping on our rose-colored shades. It’s not like the Pilgrims just sat around and had dinner parties every night. They were too busy adapting to life in Massachusetts when they had been aiming for Virginia. Ignoring daunting tasks accomplishes just as little as becoming completely overwhelmed by them. Sometimes things will slow us down and sometimes we’ll wind up in unexpected places. In the face of those challenges, it helps to have a feast or a study break or a road trip sing-along that reminds us that we’re happy to be here.
Ali Elkin is a Medill senior. She can be reached at [email protected].
