'TIS THE season of making and breaking New Year's resolutions. Maybe you're going to shed those 15 pounds (really, you mean it this time) or go to the gym four times a week (four, one, what's the difference?). Perhaps this is the year for increased volunteerism, or cutting back on stress. Although New Year's was a few weeks ago, I would like to share my resolution, one that I hope the whole community can embrace: I resolve to ask the question "why?" more often.
We often get caught up in our lives and forget to ever step back and consider the broader picture. Take extra-curricular organizations, for example: Every club, from Ballroom Dance to the College Republicans to, yes, The Cavalier Daily, has its own particular internal politics. But when those politics devolve into personal feuds, the overarching goals of the group self-destruct.
Why are we in our respective clubs? Why do we spend untold hours attending meetings and events, with many aspiring to higher office? Obviously there is personal enjoyment to be gained, but often there is more to it than that. Although some clubs such as the Albemarle County Foosball Association occupy a slimmer niche than organizations dedicated to the public good like Student Council or Madison House, all groups have definable goals.
Whether struggling to spread foosball throughout the University or trying to serve student needs, destructive personal politics only hinders momentum. This is not Washington, D.C. -- popularity should take a backseat to progress.
We're ostensibly in our groups to accomplish something, and as the new semester begins we would all do well to remember that. We should emphasize honesty over duplicity and frankness over things said behind someone's back. This shouldn't be about like or dislike; it should be about competence. It would be a boon to refocus on goals and rise above the tide of vitriol.
Remember the idealism of the school year's beginning? Grasp that and bring it back. The weather outside is bitter, and Spring Break seems impossibly distant.
Yet most organizations have or are getting new leadership: There is an incredible body of work from last semester to build off of. The possibilities for the next five months are endless -- if we remember why we're here to begin with.
There are sober issues facing the University as we enter 2005. Race relations and the single sanction remain front and center on the agenda, and they have been joined by sexual assault and the Chartered Universities Initiative. Stepping away from extra-curriculars, there is a broader question of why any of us are at the University. To gain an education to be sure, but education is about far more than just academics: It's learning about the (sometimes harsh) realities of life, about community and identity, about citizenship. It's about growing as a person.
No one is going to tell you that you have to get involved; that's one of the beauties of the system. But consider "why" the next time you don't attend a rally for a cause you believe in, or when you don't send an e-mail about it to your Student Council representative, or when you don't write a letter to the editor.
The answer might be simply that you don't care and you're here for the degree. That's fine. A reasoned response is still far nobler than apathy.
"Why?" is sometimes a hard question to ask. It forces us to challenge assumptions and presuppositions, to confront head-on the possibility that we could be wrong, or worse yet that our opponents could be right. It can make us uncomfortable to take nothing for granted, which is probably why we take most everything for granted.
Yet examining our lives and everything in them with a scrutinizing eye can only help refine ideas and ideals that better equip us to accomplish whatever it is we want to.
Ultimately, the University is a very human place. It is an amalgam of worldviews, beliefs, personalities, backgrounds, idiosyncrasies and hopes. None of us are here for the exact same reasons, yet all of us share certain commonalities. By continually asking the question "why?" we can discover how to embrace those shared qualities and parley the differences into compromise.
I'm optimistic about the new year and the new semester. That's why.
Elliot Haspel is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at ehaspel@cavalierdaily.com.
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