Lately, I’ve been having strange sensory distortions and feel like a walking poster for “this is your brain on drugs.” I called my sister the other day and drunkenly told her how much I love her and how cool I think she is and how I just really, really love her. The only problem is that I’m not on drugs or drunk at all—I’m just really tired. Night after night of four hours of sleep is breaking me down, and I’m ready for a change.

At work last Sunday, we watched The Pursuit of Happyness. Like Chris Gardner, I’m in pursuit of something in the hopes that I too will be happy—I’m after a college degree. I work two jobs so I can afford to eat and pay my rent. I started volunteering last year because it shows that I’m well rounded and have good character—good qualities for future scholarship and job applications. Between shifts and classes I squeeze in bursts of studying so I can hang on to any chance of winning those
potential scholarships and jobs.

I’m not alone: though sometimes it feels like I am, hidden in the most remote place I can find on campus to commune with my textbooks. As a college degree becomes both more expensive to obtain and less valuable to those who obtain it, most of us are struggling to support ourselves as well as differentiate ourselves from the thousands of others who will graduate with the exact same degree.

This scares me. I’m an English major with no intention of becoming a teacher. As print journalism disappears, so does my chance of finding a job. My backup plan is to become a yoga teacher, which means I need to keep up my yoga practice, too. The only time I can find is at midnight, which becomes dangerous as I stand on one leg, the other clasped above my head, precariously balancing in my exhaustion. My other option is speed yoga—moving from pose to pose with rapid fire intensity in hopes of getting the same benefits in the few minutes between classes.

Somehow this doesn’t have the same meditative, relaxing effect my usual practice has and violates numerous Ashtanga principles of dedication, contemplation, and concentration. The Eastern philosophy that I love so much urges a deeper connection with the universe and less focus on individual success, but off the mat it’s harder to find a place for this mentality. When everyone else charges full speed ahead, lingering to smell the proverbial roses feels inadequate and a bit ludicrous.

The Pursuit of Happyness wasn’t all that funny, but I found myself laughing giddily through a lot of it. Besides the fact that my mind was bordering on delusion at that point, I was struck by the similarities between Chris Gardner and so many college students. We’re putting ourselves in great financial risk, thousands of dollars in debt, for an education that may or may not result in a job and a future. We’re counting on this degree, this education to be our ticket to financial independence,
security and happiness, but by the time we graduate the train may have left the station.

I don’t want to think about this.

I don’t want to pursue being happy.

I want to be happy.