As tenth week rolls around here at Lawrence, there's only one word to describe how I feel 24/7: stressed. Finals are coming up, papers are due, projects and presentations are happening, and I have literally no free time. Between work, clubs, and classes, there's simply no time for other "optional" things, such as meals, or sleep.

Lawrence, as a community, has this one major problem that we all tend to forget about until the term starts to wrap up-- there is an immense amount of pressure on students to constantly be busy. Everyone feels the need to be involved in everything, and with so many amazing on campus organizations, who wouldn't want to? But, unfortunately, there's only a set amount of hours in a day, and we truly can't take part in every activity or group there is on or off campus. It's simply not possible.

Of course, that's not going to stop us from trying. And not only do we as students try to be as involved as possible, there's a sense of competitiveness about it. People treat you as if you're not good enough if you aren't in as many organizations as them. If you only get a few hours of sleep, you aren't actually struggling, because somebody on this campus got less. According to our culture on campus, if you aren't in everything, you aren't good enough. And this part its the real problem.

Once stress becomes a competition, there's no going back. There's nothing wrong with being involved in many things because you like them all. Yes, it's stressful, and yes, you may have to make sacrifices for the sake of your schedule and/or sanity. But when it gets to the point where people brag about getting less sleep than you, we know that it's gone too far.

The obsession with being the busiest, most involved person on campus is getting unhealthy. Having an incredibly busy schedule may seem fine during first week, second, third, even fourth. But once midterms come around, it starts getting difficult to handle, and by eighth, ninth, and tenth week, it will be too much to handle. And even if you do manage, a busy schedule means less free time for fun with friends or just watching Netflix.

It also means you won't be available to check out all the cool events happening on campus because you'll be in a meeting, or working, or writing an essay that you should've written earlier but can't because you were in a meeting when you meant to write it. There's so many great things happening that it's impossible to make it to all of them, but when your regular weekly schedule is packed, you might not make it to any at all.

So yes, being involved in things can be a good thing, but in small quantities. Because when it gets to the point where barely any sleep is the goal, it's gone to far. This mindset that you have to be the most involved in order to matter is toxic. It's time to step back and enjoy life from a more relaxed pace.