Reading Days. I don't know about you, but the very idea of Reading Days is a source of great anxiety for me. Just thinking about a three-day weekend (four-day for those of us with No-Class Fridays) devoted solely to reading induces pangs of dread deep in my gut. It's hyped as this momentous, once-in-a-semester opportunity to really get things done -- and that freaks me out. I have these grand visions of myself reading fervently on my couch at home and banking some serious productivity points while my mom makes me dinner and does my laundry, but then reality sets in and I acknowledge what I know in my heart to be true: I never seem to get as much done during Reading Days as I plan to.
I'd like to think I'm not the only one who inevitably does not meet her Reading Day goals. If you've ever come back from Reading Days and said something to the effect of, "I was going to read (insert number of pages here) and write (insert number of papers here) -- and maybe even read ahead -- but that just didn't happen," then you know what I'm talking about.
And the problem of the uncompleted to-do list is not limited to Reading Day weekend. I feel like most Monday morning conversations include lamentations such as "Seriously, I did, like, no work this weekend," or "I didn't open a book until Sunday night -- after 'Desperate Housewives.'"
Why do we seem to fall short of our productivity goals? Are Facebook, AIM and YouTube to blame? Are "Full House" re-runs on Nick-at-Nite the culprit? Is it a lack of motivation or recurring bouts of senioritis left over from high school?
As convenient as it is to identify social networking sites and classic '90s television shows as scapegoats for our productivity shortcomings, I don't think it's simply a matter of dwindling attention spans succumbing to distraction. Rather, I think it is a case of unreasonable expectations. Perhaps the question should be: Are we setting the bar too high? Do we expect too much from ourselves?
We're an ambitious bunch here at the University. We all have big dreams about what we can do with our lives -- and even if you have no idea what you want to be when you grow up, you probably have some vague notion of where you'll end up. I think it's safe to say we all harbor an ambition to achieve greatness in some way, but is it possible to be too ambitious? Can you ever cross the line from being ambitious to completely unrealistic?
To think I can read a total of 382 pages of two novels, as well as finish a 319-page novel I was supposed to have read a month ago, outline a paper and do a two-page close reading all in four days is simply absurd. I'm all for ambition and holding oneself to a standard way above mediocrity, but in assessing my Reading Day agenda, I'm starting to think my goals are a bit too lofty.
So is the answer not to have any expectations for ourselves? Should we forget about shooting for the moon and just go for the stars instead? Aim low?
I think it's time we acknowledge the fact that we all have our limitations. We're human. We can only read so many pages in one day. We can only focus on abstruse matters of academia for so long. Distractions are inevitable, and the need for leisure time cannot be denied. So instead of setting lofty productivity goals for ourselves this Reading Day weekend -- and indeed for all weekends to come -- perhaps we should recognize the fact that we can only do so much in a given period of time.
I am in no way suggesting we lower the bar to slacker level but rather am suggesting we re-evaluate the expectations we have for ourselves. Consider this: If we don't expect too much, we can never set ourselves up for disappointment. Instead, we can only be pleasantly surprised by how much we do, in fact, end up achieving. After all, we all possess an innate drive to succeed, so it's only natural that our overachieving side will prevail, thus making the possibility of a full-scale decline into Slackerdom highly unlikely.
And with that, my column is completed ahead of schedule -- just in time for "Home Improvement."
Lauren's column runs bi-weekly on Thursdays. She can be reached at pappa@cavalierdaily.com.
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