With back to school season upon us comes a lot of different feelings – excitement, anxiety, giddiness, nervousness – the list goes on. However, I’ve noticed in my two years so far at Bentley that coming back to school brings out the “work hard, play hard” energy in all of us. Bentley students are notoriously competitive (which is just part of our business school nature), so when it comes to the classroom and campus life in general, there’s a huge presence of grind culture when everyone moves back in.
However, this year I’m trying to fight that grind culture.
College and concepts like “adulting” instill the toxic idea that we have to grind nonstop if we want to succeed at school and later on in life. But how can we know this for sure? Is life really this domino effect where if I don’t spend every waking moment studying, working, and busying myself to be productive, I won’t find success in the future?
My back to school mentality this year is to live in the present. I don’t want to worry about the future and use grind culture as a way to cope with that. I want to enjoy my last two years of college because I know that in a decade, I will look back on these four years of my life and wish I cherished them more.
I’m choosing to remind myself that college is a marathon, not a sprint. I can’t overwork myself before these four years are over or else I’ll burn out. Instead, I need to work and play in moderation, and put myself first so that I can keep “grinding” when it is most needed.
Grind culture is not always a bad thing – some people thrive off of being busy. But we are all only capable of so much, and it is okay to admit that sometimes.