“Once in a small chapel in Chimayo, New Mexico, I knelt in the dirt because I thought that’s what you were supposed to do. That was before I learned to harness that upward motion inside me, before I nested my head in the blood of my body. There was a sign and it said, This earth is blessed. Do not play in it. But I swear I will play on this blessed earth until I die.”
– Ada Limón, “Miracle Fish”
Religious beliefs aside, Ms. Limón—who delivered the school’s annual Lambert Lecture—makes an important point about vows.
At Hotchkiss, we “swear” to do a lot of things: to hit the gym, to drag ourselves ungodly distances to breakfast in the FFC, to sleep more, work more, or lock in next marking period. And while self-improvement is an admirable journey, it’s reached the point where our “ideal self” looks more like a god than a human: a never- stressed, ever-graceful 6-foot specimen of pure muscle who begins each morning with a meditation session, walks to the FFC for every meal, never misses an English reading, and (somehow?) has friends—all while managing to get 8+ hours of sleep a night.
If that sounds insane, it’s because IT IS. We’re trapped in a cycle of obsessive self-optimization: we set impossibly high standards for ourselves but are ashamed when we fail to meet them. Part of that is our fault (the average Hotchkiss student has a tolerance threshold for imperfection, and it’s not very high), but a lot of it isn’t.
Whether it’s self-inflicted, environmental, or familial, we all feel huge amounts of pressure. This pressure—to get good grades, to be an involved community member, to do something meaningful—has catapulted us too early into the stresses of adulthood. Pressure, and the expectations it creates, has infected everything we do. Sports we played for fun we now play only to win; classes we took to learn are now taken only for As; clubs we joined out of interest we now continue solely out of obligation. Just like Ms. Limón, we’ve been instructed not to play. And we don’t.
Sometimes it feels like the only way to respond to this pressure is to give in. They say “Do not play,” and we don’t. They say “Study hard,” and we do.
But what if there were another way? What if we played sports just to have fun, took classes to learn, or did things simply because they made us happy?
It’s counterintuitive, but the best thing to do is often whatever you WANT to do. Productive work doesn’t have to be miserable. Don’t do it just to do it; do it because you want to do it. Restoring passion to the things we pursue is key not only to reducing our stress, but ending its control over us.
Now, we’re not saying you should throw caution to the wind and abandon all your un-fun commitments. But what we ARE saying is to change your mindset. There is something valuable in everything you do, even if you don’t immediately see it. Search for it. Find it. And never stop playing on this blessed earth.
