Column by CJ Conklin

“Worrying is like a rocking chair.  It gives you something to do, but it doesn’t get you anywhere.”  Van Wilder, played by Ryan Reynolds, is perhaps the most loved college kid in the movie industry since the delinquents that starred in Animal House. If there is one thing that Van teaches people, it’s that life should be a long, stress-free, naked 5K.

That’s not how it always works out in college, but it is a personal motto Van tries to abide by throughout his fictitious life.  However, most college kids find a lot to stress about: a test, a girlfriend or boyfriend, work, or their fraternity or sorority – just pick your poison. But the next time you are thinking ‘oh-my-gosh, totally, like for real, I’m soooo stressed out,’ take a second and ask yourself, what for?

To some degree, as long as people have tasks to accomplish, they more than likely will worry about it, at least for a second or two.  But when people worry about something so much that it consumes minutes, or even hours of their day, what’s the point?

I know, I know, it’s easier said than done.  For instance, there are times when you have a big test coming up when stressing out is almost necessary in order to do well.  In my first two years of college I took nearly 75 tests, and can honestly say that not one of them were really that important.  Now, maybe some tests are more influential than others, but no test is life-or-death.

“I’ve learned that you can’t treat every situation as a life-and-death matter, because you’ll die a lot of times,” says Van, whose entire college success comes down to a single test.  But even Van, who ends up putting Professor McDoogle’s test to shame, realizes that it’s still just one small aspect of a very limitless life.

Furthermore, and perhaps even more ridiculous, is stressing over things that aren’t even going on in your life right now.  What’s the point in worrying about the wedding you’re planning a year from now, the career you will be starting upon graduation in two years (if you graduate in two months, go ahead and worry for a second or two), or even where you’re going to live when it’s finally time to move out of that well-kept, ‘mom-would-be-proud-of-how-many-dishes-are-in-the sink’ place you’ve called home the past few years?

Although I’m not a pessimistic person, th­e only two guarantees in life seem to be that we all have the ability to love, and that we all will one day die.  For some people, the day of reckoning doesn’t come for close to a century, while for others it comes after only a fraction of that.  However, there is no way of knowing, so to waste a measureless number of finite moments stressing about things that haven’t even happened yet seems pointless.

The worst consequence to worrying about the future, is losing track of what’s going on right now.  “If you’re always thinking about the future, then you kind of forget about the present,” the seven-year, non-doctoral degree-recipient Van says.

He stayed in college for seven years, but if every person who graduated in four could spend three more years learning that lesson, they would leave with something far greater than a piece of paper.

The point is not that we should all give up on worrying about anything, drop out of school because it causes us stress, and spend the next few years with our “toes in the water, and ass in the sand,” as Zac Brown so elegantly put it in the song “Toes”.  If you are always worried and constantly stressed about the day-to-day activities of your life, are you really enjoying it?  Maybe it’s time for a change, or maybe you just have to lighten the tension a bit.  One way or another, life’s moving fast, and it seems like the most sure-fire way to miss the ride is to be so stressed out that you forget to get on.