IN THE RICE BOX: Numbers Game

OLIVIA CHEUNG
Editor in Chief

Anyone who tells you that balance is easy is a liar. As teenagers, we know of the failed attempts at balancing our academic, social and personal lives all within 24 hours. As students, we are encouraged—if not conditioned—to tip the balance scale in order to prioritize our grades for a comfortable future.

But what if our futures aren’t meant to be just comfortable? What if we want to tell our college friends about the time we snuck out of the house at four a.m. to bike around the empty streets with a dear friend? What if we want to tell our kids about the time we spent 20 hours binge watching Gray’s Anatomy and still bear no regrets? What if we want to live a little?

Don’t get me wrong. Grades are important—I would be a liar if I said I let my grades slide—but so is everything else that pertains to us. I’m consistently asked why I sleep at 1 a.m. on a near daily basis if I know it’s awful for my health, but I laugh every time and smile like I did when I was five years old, an age epitomized by invincibility and happiness, and answer, “balance.”

I may look like a walking corpse at school, but I feel alive to an extent schoolwork alone could never afford me. I often envision myself as an overworked 30-year-old and ask, “Will I remember how many A’s I earned in high school? Or will I remember the time I watched Piranhaconda with a friend and laughed for what felt like the first time?”

I believe there’s more to our lives than paper and numbers. I hope you believe so, too.