It’s become a joke on campus, “oh, I have a paper due midnight that I haven’t started” or “yep, 100 pages of reading to do before I go to bed”.

Today, especially at school, there is a culture and a pressure to make use of all of our time. To do everything we can. To make this opportunity and these four years worth it and to do all the fun stuff.

This makes some sense -- I go to a school that has a ton of amazing opportunities between all the classes, activities, clubs and people. Why not do it all?

But when we fall into this trap, we’re pushed to our limits, and not in a positive sense. We are pushed time wise, sure, but also mentally and emotionally: running from commitment to commitment, deep in my head doing the mental gymnastics trying to figure out how I’m going to finish work between everything before the deadline and squeeze in that other thing I just said yes too. And then a friend comes out of nowhere, and it’s a fun 5 minute catch up, but now I’m 5 minutes less to this commitment increasing that tickle of anxiety.

This trap is common on campus, where we’ve gotten to a “good” school often by surviving this overcommitment lifestyle.

When we’re here, in order to get the minimum sleep required to function the next day or make that assignment or reading in time, we’ll end up doing as much as we can with the time and emotional energy we have left which is often pretty much bare minimum. Because we’re so drained mentally and emotionally, we’ll use the fearfully close assignment deadline to motivate the work. Then, even when we are at these classes, meetings or other commitment we are so emotionally and mentally dead that we end up dragging and putting in just enough focus to get by, but something pathetic versus what we’re capable of.

We are, in sum, pushing life to the limits in quantity, one that leaves us in a haze of rational gymnastics, the anxiety of checkboxes, and leaving us in a whole lot of mediocrity and indifference.

This is not a way to live. It’s a reactionary existence, even animalistic. It is indifference and mediocrity. Not truly living.

If we’ve found ourselves here, as I have sometimes found myself in the past, we need to escape this machine to really live. We need to cut down on expectations and commitments -- ones we set for ourselves and for others.

In order to do this, and to do so with a clear vision, we need to free ourselves from the rules we’ve made for ourselves without our even knowing it, including:

• that more is better. Just because our calendar has room for it, it doesn’t mean we should do it. We are not robots who function in rationally calculated grooves.

• that we are indispensable to a certain community. No, we’re probably not. Sure we can add a lot, and sure there is probably much good there, but don’t let this keep us from saying no to something or cutting back when we need to

• that if we find ourselves here, we can just par don a little. No, we need to par down A LOT. Like 80%. and and build back from this new direction. Bent stick remedy is crucial here because it’s not just a “what” thing / a balance thing, it is also a motivation and thinking thing. Prudence and will need to be exposed and act from this other extreme to have this necessary balance.

To this latter point, it takes patience and energy to act actively. To move positively. But this is necessary if we don’t want to just yield, letting ourselves float downstream down the current of culture, be it here in the university environment or thereafter. We are creatures of habit, what habits we build now won’t just disappear later.

Yes we’re going to have to say no to some really good things. The cliche is true: we have to choose between “goods”. And maybe it isn’t so bad to fall into the overcommitment trap early in school because, early freshman year in particular, because this helps us to know which one or two things will be the special one or two that we will be fully committed to full stop.

When we make this reversal and prioritize the one thing, and maybe bring along one other thing to full send into, we are able to take complete ownership over each of these things.

Then, when we are at these commitments -- be it a club or class or otherwise -- we are fully there. When we are doing the thing, we can do so deeply.

When we reject the shallow minimum and choose to live deeply, we grow and learn in more meaningful ways. We’re able to push ourselves in places that are worth pushing, be it wrestling with material deep in a book, helping a club pivot in the right direction after a challenge or failure, full sending a 2 day hike on a weekend in the Appalachians, or spending some incredible time with God in prayer or friends doing whatever crazy something. We grow mentally, spiritually, relationally, and in the ways that matter. We allow for the zero to ones, not the shallow 4 to the shallow 5s.

In this thinly committed world, between the moments growth in these depths, we need a lot of extra, unplanned time to flourish.

For one, this allows us to live as my Croatian great-grandmother taught: that you never have to have any weeds in your garden if you never walk past one. If you see a weed when walking past, you pick it, full stop. So if you’re going about your day and something comes up to do, instead of adding it to the bottom of that horribly long and never-gotten-too-until-its-too-late to-do list, we can spend 30 seconds just cranking it out in that moment. In practicality, this keeps us from having to spending a few hours each weekend doing all those things that we were supposed to have done the previous week, it more importantly keeps us from the stress and mental baggage of such a long reminders and to-dos that inevitably get done late or never and provide 10x the emotional baggage.

This flexibility also allows us to really love people, to love them by “wasting” time on them. The life of discipleship is one of squandering one’s life on others. I don’t know who said that but I think they were right. We are better able to do this with flexibility, both because we will have regained an abundance mindset and because we will legitimately have that time free from other things.

This freedom also allows us to be spontaneous and say yes to things that come up, be it a conversation in a hall or a trip to the river, without material sacrifices to sleep or other commitments.

When we live actively like this, we are able to choose the high road over the easy one. We are able to develop virtue where we have need of it. Sure, when the current is flowing in the right direction, we can enjoy it and let ourselves float down with it. But when the current runs contrary to the good, and if we’ve grown to see more clearly with prudence that has benefitted from a more deep and reflective experience and we’ve strengthened our will in active action by living accordingly, we are able to walk against the current toward the good, true or beautiful that is calling.

When we live this sort of good life, it gives peace. To hear God, hear others, hear ourselves. To hear the birds, and the trees, and the water. This is training for eternity. And this is a good way to live, in whatever chapter of life.

-- follow up thought --

When we’re functioning at our quantity limit juggling many commitments, we play the game of “which option is the least cost / would do the least harm to check the box”. But this survival mode is a recipe for a lot of “alright” moments.

One amazing moment trumps a hundred alright ones.

We can’t calculate these amazing moments, but we can set ourselves up for them, by going deep into something, investing in it not knowing what it’s going to spit out, taking risks, putting ourselves out there.

These are the moments that remind us what life’s all about. It’s a beautiful moment that gets us out of our heads and then also turns us to look back at ourselves with everything in perspective, all in a beautiful rhythm that makes sense -- though not a particularly rationalistic sort of sense. They are what make life feel as meaningful as it is.

I experienced this in a small way this past fall. I had a busy day and was tired. I knew I needed to get a workout in that day, my options were tri-team run, or tri-team bike. The run was known, it would be fun and short. I had done it many times before, and it would get the job done. The bike option was more stout: it could be a full 2-3 hours of commitment all in, but it has far higher potential upside.

I remember something tugging on me to do the bike. And though it seemed unreasonable at the time, I took a risk and went for it.

This bike ride was one of the highlights of all of this past fall. It was a 2+ hour ride up Jericho and around a dirt road loop I had never been on all the way back around to Norwich before dropping back into campus. The fall colors were incredible, the sun was incredible, and I had a few incredible conversations with some people I don’t see very often.

Now I wouldn’t have been able to quantify why that ride was the better option than all the things I had to do that day. But I know that this ride was one of the amazing moments, the ones when everything comes together and makes sense, the ones where you’re left in such peace and joy and you know that yes, this indeed is a good way to live.

It’s become a joke on campus, “oh, I have a paper due midnight that I haven’t started” or “yep, 100 pages of reading to do before I go to bed”.

Today, especially at school, there is a culture and a pressure to make use of all of our time. To do everything we can. To make this opportunity and these four years worth it and to do all the fun stuff.

This makes some sense -- I go to a school that has a ton of amazing opportunities between all the classes, activities, clubs and people. Why not do it all?

But when we fall into this trap, we’re pushed to our limits, and not in a positive sense. We are pushed time wise, sure, but also mentally and emotionally: running from commitment to commitment, deep in my head doing the mental gymnastics trying to figure out how I’m going to finish work between everything before the deadline and squeeze in that other thing I just said yes too. And then a friend comes out of nowhere, and it’s a fun 5 minute catch up, but now I’m 5 minutes less to this commitment increasing that tickle of anxiety.

This trap is common on campus, where we’ve gotten to a “good” school often by surviving this overcommitment lifestyle.

When we’re here, in order to get the minimum sleep required to function the next day or make that assignment or reading in time, we’ll end up doing as much as we can with the time and emotional energy we have left which is often pretty much bare minimum. Because we’re so drained mentally and emotionally, we’ll use the fearfully close assignment deadline to motivate the work. Then, even when we are at these classes, meetings or other commitment we are so emotionally and mentally dead that we end up dragging and putting in just enough focus to get by, but something pathetic versus what we’re capable of.

We are, in sum, pushing life to the limits in quantity, one that leaves us in a haze of rational gymnastics, the anxiety of checkboxes, and leaving us in a whole lot of mediocrity and indifference.

This is not a way to live. It’s a reactionary existence, even animalistic. It is indifference and mediocrity. Not truly living.

If we’ve found ourselves here, as I have sometimes found myself in the past, we need to escape this machine to really live. We need to cut down on expectations and commitments -- ones we set for ourselves and for others.

In order to do this, and to do so with a clear vision, we need to free ourselves from the rules we’ve made for ourselves without our even knowing it, including:

• that more is better. Just because our calendar has room for it, it doesn’t mean we should do it. We are not robots who function in rationally calculated grooves.

• that we are indispensable to a certain community. No, we’re probably not. Sure we can add a lot, and sure there is probably much good there, but don’t let this keep us from saying no to something or cutting back when we need to

• that if we find ourselves here, we can just par don a little. No, we need to par down A LOT. Like 80%. and and build back from this new direction. Bent stick remedy is crucial here because it’s not just a “what” thing / a balance thing, it is also a motivation and thinking thing. Prudence and will need to be exposed and act from this other extreme to have this necessary balance.

To this latter point, it takes patience and energy to act actively. To move positively. But this is necessary if we don’t want to just yield, letting ourselves float downstream down the current of culture, be it here in the university environment or thereafter. We are creatures of habit, what habits we build now won’t just disappear later.

Yes we’re going to have to say no to some really good things. The cliche is true: we have to choose between “goods”. And maybe it isn’t so bad to fall into the overcommitment trap early in school because, early freshman year in particular, because this helps us to know which one or two things will be the special one or two that we will be fully committed to full stop.

When we make this reversal and prioritize the one thing, and maybe bring along one other thing to full send into, we are able to take complete ownership over each of these things.

Then, when we are at these commitments -- be it a club or class or otherwise -- we are fully there. When we are doing the thing, we can do so deeply.

When we reject the shallow minimum and choose to live deeply, we grow and learn in more meaningful ways. We’re able to push ourselves in places that are worth pushing, be it wrestling with material deep in a book, helping a club pivot in the right direction after a challenge or failure, full sending a 2 day hike on a weekend in the Appalachians, or spending some incredible time with God in prayer or friends doing whatever crazy something. We grow mentally, spiritually, relationally, and in the ways that matter. We allow for the zero to ones, not the shallow 4 to the shallow 5s.

In this thinly committed world, between the moments growth in these depths, we need a lot of extra, unplanned time to flourish.

For one, this allows us to live as my Croatian great-grandmother taught: that you never have to have any weeds in your garden if you never walk past one. If you see a weed when walking past, you pick it, full stop. So if you’re going about your day and something comes up to do, instead of adding it to the bottom of that horribly long and never-gotten-too-until-its-too-late to-do list, we can spend 30 seconds just cranking it out in that moment. In practicality, this keeps us from having to spending a few hours each weekend doing all those things that we were supposed to have done the previous week, it more importantly keeps us from the stress and mental baggage of such a long reminders and to-dos that inevitably get done late or never and provide 10x the emotional baggage.

This flexibility also allows us to really love people, to love them by “wasting” time on them. The life of discipleship is one of squandering one’s life on others. I don’t know who said that but I think they were right. We are better able to do this with flexibility, both because we will have regained an abundance mindset and because we will legitimately have that time free from other things.

This freedom also allows us to be spontaneous and say yes to things that come up, be it a conversation in a hall or a trip to the river, without material sacrifices to sleep or other commitments.

When we live actively like this, we are able to choose the high road over the easy one. We are able to develop virtue where we have need of it. Sure, when the current is flowing in the right direction, we can enjoy it and let ourselves float down with it. But when the current runs contrary to the good, and if we’ve grown to see more clearly with prudence that has benefitted from a more deep and reflective experience and we’ve strengthened our will in active action by living accordingly, we are able to walk against the current toward the good, true or beautiful that is calling.

When we live this sort of good life, it gives peace. To hear God, hear others, hear ourselves. To hear the birds, and the trees, and the water. This is training for eternity. And this is a good way to live, in whatever chapter of life.

-- follow up thought --

When we’re functioning at our quantity limit juggling many commitments, we play the game of “which option is the least cost / would do the least harm to check the box”. But this survival mode is a recipe for a lot of “alright” moments.

One amazing moment trumps a hundred alright ones.

We can’t calculate these amazing moments, but we can set ourselves up for them, by going deep into something, investing in it not knowing what it’s going to spit out, taking risks, putting ourselves out there.

These are the moments that remind us what life’s all about. It’s a beautiful moment that gets us out of our heads and then also turns us to look back at ourselves with everything in perspective, all in a beautiful rhythm that makes sense -- though not a particularly rationalistic sort of sense. They are what make life feel as meaningful as it is.

I experienced this in a small way this past fall. I had a busy day and was tired. I knew I needed to get a workout in that day, my options were tri-team run, or tri-team bike. The run was known, it would be fun and short. I had done it many times before, and it would get the job done. The bike option was more stout: it could be a full 2-3 hours of commitment all in, but it has far higher potential upside.

I remember something tugging on me to do the bike. And though it seemed unreasonable at the time, I took a risk and went for it.

This bike ride was one of the highlights of all of this past fall. It was a 2+ hour ride up Jericho and around a dirt road loop I had never been on all the way back around to Norwich before dropping back into campus. The fall colors were incredible, the sun was incredible, and I had a few incredible conversations with some people I don’t see very often.

Now I wouldn’t have been able to quantify why that ride was the better option than all the things I had to do that day. But I know that this ride was one of the amazing moments, the ones when everything comes together and makes sense, the ones where you’re left in such peace and joy and you know that yes, this indeed is a good way to live.