If you’re anything like me, between lurking posts and updates on LinkedIn and Instagram, you know all about the cool internships, new jobs and exciting travel plans your friends experienced this summer.
Something feels especially lame when you’re asked “How was your summer?” and none of those posts were made by you.
I didn’t nail the internship. I didn’t take a cool class. And I definitely didn’t travel anywhere.
I don’t say this to nag because, of course, I’m not alone. But at a place like Lehigh, it doesn’t always feel like that.
At the start of summer, I returned to my ongoing job as a receptionist. The shame I felt for “wasting” away my summer doing something neither interesting nor fun ultimately led me to Lehigh’s remote career center.
A frenzy of resume-building panic made me eager to jumpstart the upcoming year. While the staff I spoke to was very knowledgeable, I found myself constantly having to explain why I was even working as a receptionist in the first place.
The simple answer? Money.
I tracked exactly how much money I needed to pay my tuition, housing and loan payments in full. Every hour I worked was in a meticulous effort to afford just a single semester at Lehigh. Down to the dollar.
When productivity falls short, those with less often find themselves at the mercy of a demoralizing success culture.
Americans value hard work. Being rich, poor, smart or dumb doesn’t take away your ability to work hard if you want to. But why do we expect those who have the least to work the hardest?
Being a hard worker doesn’t make you a good person, and not working hard doesn’t make you a bad one.
A myriad of socioeconomic factors make up an individual’s financial upbringing. At an Ivy-adjacent liberal arts college in the northeast, there are plenty of students coming from similar places.
I could call out the worrisome decline of the middle class and defend the economic injustice that burdens most of the country, but I don’t.
I don’t judge myself for envying my peers. For the most part, I’m happy for them. I congratulate them and ask them about their travels.
They’re making the most of what they have. In my own way, I am too.
It’s possible that I could’ve found a well-paying job elsewhere, but I didn’t work very hard to make that happen. And, I don’t blame myself for that.
I renovated my pet turtle’s tank, watched a lot of TV and cheered my dad on as he pursued a new hobby. Ultimately, this is what I wanted: a cherished and well-deserved break.
In the past, I criticized myself for not working hard enough. But, as I said earlier, why does a cultural obsession with hard work have to demean me?
For the two months I have between semester sessions, am I not allowed to just be happy?
When someone asks me how my summer was, I tell them the truth: boring, but I’m perfectly fine with that.
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