I am a highly involved student. Throughout high school, I immersed myself in a wide range of activities, from varsity soccer to student government to an international student exchange program. Experience was integral to my development. I became a hands-on kind of person, and in order to grow, I needed to do. I thrived on filling every hour of my days, embraced sleeping less than six hours each night, and bragged about my lack of free time. I dove deep into my endeavors and approached each opportunity with enthusiasm. I was often cutting it close with deadlines, but somehow I managed to pull everything together in a way that reflected my sincere efforts.

When I came to Notre Dame, my over-involved lifestyle was coupled with the pressure I felt to fulfill the Notre Dame student stereotype. People here are highly motivated: go-getters, overachievers, people with grit. It seemed that everyone around me was living the same kind lifestyle as I was. I embraced the culture and began acquiring a diverse stockpile of experiences. As weeks went by, though, I found myself seemingly drowning in commitments. I began to feel like I spent my days running around every hour but accomplishing nothing. I did not have time to appreciate these experiences; I was just trying to make it through each day to the next. Despite my increasing indifference, I continued to overfill my plate. My inability to keep up with everything that I had committed myself to spurred feelings of uselessness, for which I overcompensated by trying to do even more. I entered into this vicious cycle, and I am still working to break it.

I know I need a change of lifestyle, and I know that my mental wellness has been suffering because of the pressure I feel to do more. This feeling of not being or doing enough is one that I think is present in many of my peers, and I think it needs to be addressed.  Most students here come from backgrounds similar to mine: we were highly involved in high school and highly successful. Many of us are knocked down a few notches when we arrive at Notre Dame.  However, we are the optimists and the “I-can-do-this” determinists, and we don’t like to ask for help or admit that we are struggling.

In my college selection, I paid particular attention to the kind of lifestyle I envisioned myself having, and this was ultimately the factor that brought me to Notre Dame. So it was sad for me to realize toward the end of my freshman year that while I loved Notre Dame, I disliked the lifestyle I was leading here. In talking with my peers, I found that many of them shared the same sentiments but were unsure of how to address the issue. One of my friends shared The Tab’s article “Are we too busy at Notre Dame?” with me, and it helped me to recognize the source of my own feelings of inadequacy and apathy.

I pursued the matter further and came across Scholastic’s article “You Are Not Alone: Untold Stories of Mental Illness at ND.” Within many of the stories, a key contributor to mental pressures faced by individuals at Notre Dame is student identity. Notre Dame students are known as well-rounded, high-achieving, and above all, happy students. The article cites this identity as problematic. “This drive for perfection and excellence, of well-adjustment, happiness and an appearance of effortlessly excelling in all facets of life from social and academic, to extracurricular, athletic and dorm life is perhaps part of the reason mental health issues are on the rise among college age students, especially Notre Dame students.”

The Notre Dame experience is such a privilege, and I think many students are so concerned with getting all they can out of it that they do not take time to enjoy it, to reflect on it, and to grow from it. Alumni often tell us we should not waste a minute because the four years will go by too fast. Some of us mistakenly interpret this as advice to fill our calendars with every event offered. What alumni are really warning us of is wasting away our time in the chaos of over-commitment. When we over-commit in quantity, we under-commit in quality. We miss out on putting our best effort forth because we are stretched too thin and more interested in checking things off our to-do list than deeply engaging, pondering, and developing projects. We miss out on building solid and lasting relationships because our presence is fleeting. Most importantly, we miss out on spontaneity. Spontaneity is the birthplace of creativity and tenacity.  When we have our calendars booked down to the minute, there is not much room for unexpected changes. Effective time management and stability certainly create positive learning environments, but instability breeds a sort of mental toughness that I think is lacking in members of our generation who are used to having total control.

The reality is that no matter how much planning and preparation we do, we cannot be in complete control. There will always be outside factors beyond our control, and we should be comfortable knowing that and entrusting that to God. Mental wellness is good when we accept our imperfections, let go of that which we cannot control, and embrace God’s plans for us.

Grace McCormick is a sophomore majoring in accountancy with a supplemental major in Spanish and a minor in CST. She is a lover of TED talks and spoken word poetry. Contact Grace at gmccorm1@nd.edu.