I am entirely the wrong person to be writing this column. If you haven’t figured it out yet, I don’t do a lot of bucket list-worthy things. While many, many, many people would consider a life of copy editing to be one of infinitely thrilling twists and turns, the rest of my life doesn’t quite live up to this expectation of excitement.
The edgiest thing I did this week was attend the Casino Royale-themed math formal, where there was no actual gambling allowed. I’ve never been arrested, and I’ve never been to Canada. Instead of raging in the front rows of concerts, I listen to the same track on the same album over and over at a reasonable volume, and then I spend the rest of the day humming it. (Sorry, roommates.)
This leaves me with proud parents and good hearing, every college senior’s dream. I have been lucky enough, though, to have good people and good conversations fill my less-than-exhilarating life. And it’s these things that can easily get pushed aside in senior year at Pepperdine, in the land of bucket lists and to-do lists.
We believe that meaningful activities are only found far away from Malibu, or we get trapped in trying to accomplish everything written on a mess of Post-its and planners. Then we miss the wealth of beautiful, challenging and wonderfully weird people who populate Pepperdine and its surroundings. It is the conversations with these people that have been my most enriching college activities.
My Friday ritual is not to draft a lineup of the parties I’m going to hop later that night, but to go to Starbucks and spend all afternoon chatting with the people around me, under the guise of getting work done. Whenever I take a few minutes to look up from my laptop, it’s as if the people in the cafe sense that someone wants to listen to their story, and they start talking.
About a month ago, I met a man in Starbucks who was walking around the U.S. He had exchanged his IT business and comfortable married life for donated meals and blistered feet, all to fulfill a Crocodile Dundee-inspired childhood dream of doing a walkabout along the perimeter of the country. Often these story-filled people will tell me much more than I care to hear. This is generally the case with scads of filmmakers and actors who are on the brink of fame … which they will cash in on as soon as one of their movies makes it to theaters.
More fulfilling than the Starbucks acquaintance exchanges are the hours spent with fellow students, doing nothing but sharing each other’s lives and struggles, joys and fears. These conversations have earned me lower grades and less sleep, but also the unique rewards of greater compassion and appreciation for others’ experiences.
The trouble with both these kinds of relationships is that they are temporary, one more so than the other, but few college relationships will follow us through moves and marriages and career changes. It really would be more utilitarian to avoid the entanglement of others, be they one-time Starbucks friends or weekly coffee buddies.
But when we move on from college, it will be the memories of late-night talks in parked cars, lessons learned from professors during office hours and encouragement from those few on campus who knew the whole story that we will recall in times of loneliness and uncertainty.
Even though I may not graduate with the best stories, I have heard some great ones. I will not have the best collection of life-threatening experiences, but I cherish my collection of eye-opening moments shared with friends. Don’t let checking exciting things off your list overcome the importance of connecting with the people in your circle or the people you could meet during the process. And maybe watch the volume on your music, too — good hearing is important for conversation.
