My first year at Brown was confusing. I arrived wide-eyed and disoriented by a mess of opportunities: clubs, parties, frats, sororities, classes, jobs. Each one told the same story: Happiness is contingent on achieving some material goal — getting into a competitive club, obtaining an override for a seminar, landing that prestigious internship. Which achievements are truly worth pursuing, however, is entirely unclear. Amid this pre-professional social warfare, my battered copy of Albert Camus’s “The Myth of Sisyphus” became an unlikely anchor. It helped me make sense of the senselessness — and it could do the same for you.
The overwhelming nature of that mess of opportunities is what makes the first year of college feel most Sisyphean. I was once told that for an optimal social life–fitness balance I should be out until 4 a.m. and be up at 9 a.m. for a relaxing 22-mile run — all the while studying how to build a discounted cash flow model. Fitness, a career in finance and a burgeoning social life with a propensity for late nights is crushingly exhausting and leaves no time in the day.
The toll is undeniable. About 36% of college students describe experiencing anxiety, 44% report symptoms of depression and 60% meet the criteria for at least one mental health issue. Why? Because the goal we are told to pursue is simply too large in scope: Be popular, look good, make a lot of money — all at once. From Rory Gilmore’s Yale anxieties to Madeleine’s existential drift in Jeffrey Eugenides’s “The Marriage Plot,” popular culture keeps circling the same truth: Expectations of excellence are crushing.
But Camus offers us another lens. He advises Sisyphus to enjoy the act of rolling the rock and take in the striking beauty of the mountain in hell to which he is chained, shifting our focus from attaining goals to the process of pursuing them. The book says “man cannot do without beauty.” If we perceive beauty to be goal-oriented and unattainable, that means we would always live in an empty and gray world. But by shifting perspectives, we find this beauty once more — this time in the journey.
While applying for a club in my first year, I lost sight of the end goal between the two rounds of workshops and the interviews, finding the process tedious, meaningless and absurd. Walking into my second workshop, however, I decided to focus on getting to know the people who were in the process with me, rather than learning for the test. I tried to understand things for the sake of understanding them. Rereading Camus shortly after this experience gave me the academic framework to understand this shift in attitude: One has to break the goal-oriented arc to which they are locked in and focus on each moment to find meaning.
When we switch from looking toward the end goal to focusing on the little stretch of mountain just before us, we are able to take a much more mindful approach to life. This shift in attitude solves the gap between what we can handle and the limitless goals that overwhelm us.
Instead of trying to do everything constantly, we can take pleasure in not knowing the destination. Rather than a confusion of imperatives, think of your first year as an opportunity to explore endless possibilities. Take this unique time of flux as a space to learn more about yourself and what is most important to you. Not only will you feel better and enjoy life more, but you’ll also do the DCF, the half-marathon and the party in a more meaningful and intentional way. Brown is unique among other universities because we have the curricular and cultural space for this kind of exploration.
So resist the rush. Take in the view, even if you’re on Sisyphus’s mountain. Imagine him happy, and you might just find yourself that way too.
Alexander Gerasimchuk ’28 can be reached at alexander_gerasimchuk@brown.edu. Please send responses to this column to letters@browndailyherald.com and other opinions to opinions@browndailyherald.com.
