The New Kind of Double Major

There are all sorts of ways to measure how intelligent someone is. Check their movie collection. Check their closet. Check their bookshelf. And of course check their checking account. The last thing you want to do is measure the worth of someone by the score on some standardized test they did half asleep in a fluorescent filled room overwhelmed with a buzzing from the broken heater in the corner. Besides, why would you want someone who did well on a standardized test anyways; doesn’t that mean they are only standard? Call me crazy but I set my sights a little higher. I’m after something a little above status quo. Something that is wild and passionate and brighter then Nicole Kidman was in Moulin Rouge. Admittedly though, being on the hunt for my very own “sparkling diamond” has taken its toll. As we grow older, and the pile of responsibilities grows with us, some things are going to have to be pushed to the side. My first choice is academics. For pushing aside that is. Now I know that college is important and that it will benefit me the rest of my life; having said that, there are a hundred and one things that take precedent before it. How we can possibly be expected to: read everything that is assigned to us, all that we are suppose to research, the several papers a week we are suppose to write and all the studying meant for us, and still manage to exist in the outside world is beyond me. I am of the mind set that all that really matters is the piece of paper that is handed to us as we walk across the stage; which initiates our adventures into debt and taxes. So we do our best to keep up with the scholarly major we have chosen, but there are always the life majors we must worry about as well.
We have to major in friendship; no matter what you want to do in life you are either going to need friends to help get you there or friends to support you once you’ve reached it. Most of the time friendship is sort of an “easy A”; usually you just find the people who fit with you and then live happily ever after. You learn each others home work, study each other until you know all the material, research one another for a deeper understanding, write them into the story of your life; do not be fooled, a real friendship does require work. Friendships even have tests, hopefully not too often, but there are times when you have to use all the required knowledge to prove or pass on to the next section. We also have to major in living. Remembering to take time to go out and actually experience the world we are studying and preparing for. Sometimes the best way to learn about something is to just go out and try it. They say that works best when trying to learn and become fluent in a language; well we are on our way to becoming fluent in the language of grown up life. So it only makes sense to do a little downtown emphasis, to study up on the inflection of a night out, and of course brush up on are party dialogue.
But I think the biggest thing we have to remember to major in, is love. We are so quick to either push it to the side until we feel the timing is right and we can spare some time to study it, or we give up on it after a few failed quizzes and a couple bad grades. But love is the one subject that will always be there, just like the favorite book you come back to while on a much needed study break. How the world would come to a complete stop had it no love in it. It might take the most time and require the most research and be the most testing thing any of us will ever study, put there wouldn’t be books, poems, songs and movies devoted to it if it weren’t all worth it. There may not be a textbook on love, but that doesn’t mean it is worthy of a couple hundred volumes. Make sure to study it whenever you can, and write a little something of your own.