One of the most meaningful lessons I learned in college came from a laptop sticker that belonged to the former chief of CrimsonEMS*. Every Sunday of my sophomore fall semester, I would sit directly across from her at board meetings. Right there, straight in my line of vision week in and week out, was the sticker: a light blue, three-by-three inch square emblazoned with the words “People Before Psets” in large black letters.
I think I first noticed the sticker because of its alliteration. There was something satisfying and cute about the phrase; it fit well on a college student’s laptop. But the more time I spent staring at it each week, the more I began to think about what the message truly meant—and whether it was something I followed in my own life.
Before college, I lived pretty much the exact opposite of the “People Before Psets” mantra. Psets, and academics in general, used to rule my life, especially in high school. I cared a lot about getting good grades and I wanted to go to a top college. I was good at school and I enjoyed studying a wide range of subjects. Doing well was a priority for me, and as a result, relationships with other people often took a backseat to homework.
There were more obvious ways that I put Psets before people, such as turning down plans to hang out with friends when I had too much work or choosing to stay home and finish an assignment instead of going to a family event. But there were also more subtle things I did. I would think twice about giving someone a ride home from school if it meant that I might get stuck in traffic and not get to start my homework until late in the evening. I could get pretty condescending when helping someone with an assignment, especially if it was something that came easily to me. Even when I noticed that someone was having a tough week, I was almost never the one to reach out and offer support, unless they were a particularly close friend, and even then, I felt like I could only give them so much of my time before I had to return to my own work-obsessed world.
Now don’t get me wrong, I certainly cared about other people. I had lots of close friends in high school, many of whom I still keep in touch with almost daily, even three years out of Natick High. And I always wanted to hang out with them when they would invite me. It’s just that all too often, I would tell myself that I needed to prioritize schoolwork before social interaction—that I could always hang out with my friends later, after accomplishing all my academic and career goals first. Little did I know, only a few short years later it would be a lot harder to finally take them up on their offer to hang out, because we’d be at different colleges, living busy lives with little room for weekend trips to the Natick Mall or spontaneous weeknight movie nights.
I also really appreciated it when people came to me for help, whether with schoolwork or a personal problem. For a while, I actually wanted to be a clinical psychologist when I grew up, because I liked the idea of working one-on-one with someone to try to alleviate whatever’s been making them upset. The irony was that in order to do this job well, I somehow believed I first needed to distance myself from other people, so I could focus on getting into a good college that would allow me to pursue this career path to the best of my ability. Instead of checking in with people myself and cultivating the kinds of skills a psychologist would actually need, I was selfish with my time and only pushed myself harder into studying, instead of to the friends who may have needed me most.
Perhaps on an even deeper level, schoolwork was an easy place to invest my energy because what I put into studying I would get out in track-able and tangible ways, as grades, test scores, and GPA points. A Harvard acceptance letter speaks for itself—or so I thought—but how could I measure whether I was a good person or a caring friend? Books, algebra problems, and biology experiments also didn’t require much emotional investment. They didn’t create drama and they couldn’t hurt you the same way people could. What I failed to realize sometimes, though, was that they also couldn’t make you happy in the way only other people can.
It wasn’t until I started college, where I was constantly being challenged and pushed out of my comfort zone in new ways, that I began to realize just how important the people who put other people before Psets truly are. These are the people who sit down next to you in the dining hall and aren’t afraid to spend an hour—or sometimes even two or three hours—getting to know you on a deeper level. The people who pick up extra shifts in CrimsonEMS or the Writing Center at the expense of their own homework or personal commitments, because they want to make sure their peers will be safe or get the academic help they need. The people who stay up late helping you prepare for an exam, even though they themselves have been done studying for a while and could easily be sleeping instead. These people make myself and countless others feel good on a daily basis because they selflessly prioritize friendship and compassion over personal accomplishment. The more I interacted with them, the more I realized that they were who I wanted to be, too.
Of course, wanting to be a better person is not enough to actually make you a better person. So, for the past two and a half years since starting college, I’ve tried to make a concerted effort to incorporate the tenet of “People Before Psets” into more of my interactions with friends. That’s meant getting hour long lunches with friends and really talking to them about how their week has been, instead of going for the potentially more productive 20-minute on-the-go power lunch. It’s meant not being afraid to stay up until 2 AM talking to my roommates—even on a school night—instead of getting ahead on work. It’s been being proactive about messaging someone who is sick, or bogged down with work, or having a tough time, to offer support and encouragement. It’s saying yes more often to seeing a movie, or going to a party, or playing a board game, when I originally planned to start an essay or study for a test. Putting people before Psets is picking up an extra shift for CrimsonEMS or the Writing Center, even if it means I won’t start my homework that day until late in the evening.
Incorporating more of these changes into my life certainly hasn’t been easy. For example, I still struggle with whether I’m coming across as genuine or not when I try to make time for people. It’s too easy, after all, to fall into the trap of telling myself that because I helped three people with a personal problem and two people with their homework—or whatever that magic number may be—that I’ve now somehow been enough of a good person for the week and can go back to just prioritizing myself. Then, sometimes when I do genuinely want to help someone, I don’t always know what to say or how to be the kind of listener they need. There’s also always just people who I miss or forget to keep in touch with. I’m still terrible at remembering to call my family regularly, for example, and I’m sure there are many other friends who I forget to reach out to, as well. And, of course, I always have to remember that choosing to put “People Before Psets” is not an excuse to ignore all my responsibilities and never do homework, in favor of more fun social activities. Sometimes I really do need to say no to spending time with friends to finish something important. Or other times, I need to give myself some alone time to re-energize. It’s ultimately about finding the right balance between dedicating time to others when you can, and giving yourself the space to finish work and practice self-care when you can’t.
Some may argue that it sounds a bit grandiose to claim that one sticker changed my entire outlook on life—and I completely agree. When I look back on it, it wasn’t the sticker, after all, that showed me what it meant to be a caring friend. Nor was it the sticker that helped me with my own challenges growing up, so that one day I would have the tools to help others. Those were all peers and family members and mentors—real people who cared about other people—and it would be unfair to attribute their impact on me to a single piece of paper. What the laptop sticker did do for me, though, was put into words for the first time something I had struggled to understand for too long. It gave me a motto by which to try to live—something to remind me what really matters and why I make the choices that I do.
On Ariel's Mind 