In My Humble Opinion Goodnight Midd

Author: Daniel Roberts

When I was offered a column with the school paper, my heart leapt. It was the chance I had waited for. I now had a legitimate forum to do what I love. Thirteen articles later, a delicately worded e-mail gently informed me that my column would not be continued into spring. As Joe Torre would say, "Your contract is up, kid."

I was pretty upset. Hell, I sure didn't feel done. I still don't. I considered firing off a furious e-mail to the editor. I wrote sad text messages to friends. In short, I overreacted. I was convinced my prospects as a professional writer had been fatally dashed. It was not until I sat down to write my farewell entry that I realized how ridiculous I was acting. Not only me - everyone who worries about their career at age nineteen.

As college students, we exist in a sheltered bubble, like it or not. Sure, you must pick a major, which can lead to anxiety about your future, subsequent retirement and death. But who cares what your major is?

What I mean is that this setback means nothing for me. I may become a journalist, I may not. I may end up flipping burgers. What I do in college does not necessarily have any bearing on my future. The guy with a 4.0 might drop out of medical school, and the girl who smokes pot all day might create the next "pet rock" and become a millionaire.

I think America needs to slow down. Society is so cutthroat now, with everyone fighting for limited spots at Goldman Sachs or Harvard Law. For a while, I don't want to hear words like "resumÈ" or "internship." I need to seriously chill out, and it seems like everyone else does too. Relax and enjoy college, and don't make the same mistake I was making: feeling locked into one path and treating every new change like a kink in your master plan.

Instead of feeling scorned, I am starting to feel more grateful. Allow me to get reflective. Since September, I got constant feedback from people: sometimes-casual compliments in Proctor, other times lengthy criticism via e-mail. I learned from both. In addition, I met people whom I certainly would not have met otherwise, and I was given a fantastic opportunity to reach the entire campus.

There is a personal side to writing a column that the student body does not neccessarily understand when it sees the finished product. At times the column felt overwhelming because it was so open-ended. A blessing and a curse, really. I often felt the restraints of staying PC, and in addition, my topic each week had to balance seriousness and humor into a tasty blend so that students would actually want to keep reading.

Finally, with any topic came the knowledge that someone out there would know more about it than I do. You do not want to be writing over your head, but you cannot survive 600 words through pure BS. The task each week was daunting, but rewarding.

I want to thank everyone who stuck with me and turned to my corner every week. I am equally grateful to those who were less kind, and openly disagreed with me or bashed me, because this helped as well. Finally, I encourage every kid at this school not to be shy about expressing opinions, because the worst that happens is you get a couple obnoxious e-mails. So keep those letters to the editor coming, and protest everything from bagel shortages to Giuliani's visit. Farewell and, oh yeah, Happy Valentine's Day. Peace out.