I’m here to be productive

Why do you drink that coffee? To wake up. Why do you need your AirPod Pros? To silence the outside world. To curate an inner world. Why do you adhere to that 5 a.m. morning routine like it’s your religion? It is.

Humans were not built to churn out the level of productivity seen among students at the University of Michigan (alternatively, insert any institution of higher education with a hungry, highly ambitious student body here). Hence, its students, to varying extents, use different tools to help them live their lives like they were born to be this productive: coffee, headphones, Andrew Huberman’s morning routine.

Namely, I think a hallmark of modern life in developed societies is the ease with which their people can acquire all the products and services they could possibly desire. This helps them fulfill their needs and wants more efficiently. Ultimately, the products and services humans rely on boil down to being tools for productivity, as these help them achieve the ultimate goal of molding a lifestyle to their liking.

Society’s dependence on an infinite supply of products and services to cater to its every craving is so ubiquitous that I’ve ignored how devastating it is. If humans aren’t engineered for productivity, then they’re trying to make it seem like they are.

This drove me to disillusionment in high school.

In the summer before ninth grade, I moved to a new school district. I was excited; this district was affluent and had resources that my old one didn’t. My new high school boasted a stunning array of Advanced Placement classes, an even more stunning selection of extracurriculars and too many classmates intent on making it into the Ivy League.

I’d always considered myself lucky to be someone who loved school for the simple pleasure of learning, so I didn’t care for the rat race. I was repulsed by the idea — prevalent among my new classmates — of needing to angle one’s high school career in a way that would look attractive to colleges, and I certainly wasn’t going to sign up for extracurriculars just because they would look good on my college application.

Yet, whether through sheer proximity or a dangerous penchant for caring too much about what others thought of me, I quickly became swept up in my peers’ productive fever, and like a cliché, no amount of work made me feel like I was doing enough. I’d never dreamt of studying at Yale University, but now I felt obligated to since so many of my classmates only expected the best for themselves. In addition, I’ve always been a devoted reader, but I felt foolish doing so (the irony!) because so many of my peers regularly sidelined hobbies so that they could spend more time studying.

Still, none of these thoughts translated into much action. I didn’t really research Yale, and I continued reading for fun. I would’ve immediately traded my lifestyle for theirs — sleepless nights spent pouring over AP chemistry and donning state-level accolades in a sport of my choice — had I been more disciplined.

Because I compared myself to my classmates constantly, weighing their courseloads, extracurriculars and amount of sleep against mine (less sleep meant more time spent being productive), I expected myself to be as productive as them. However, I didn’t change my academic habits to reflect this goal. As a result of wanting to do everything, I often did nothing at all.

I became unhappy. Since elementary school, I have approached even the most trivial of homework assignments with an inane perfectionism uncanny in any 7-year-old. This is why, when in high school, my work ethic regressed to a degree I didn’t know was possible and I came away from the four years with a bruised sense of pride. Too much of my self-worth was tied to my academic performance for me to not be wounded by the lackluster grades I graduated high school with.

Upon finishing high school, I was committed to attending the University of Michigan, although the choice still gave me mixed feelings. Mainly, I was bitter that I had squandered my time in high school, swinging between indecision and discontent. It wasn’t a good way to live.

Desperate for change, last year during my freshman year of college, I did things on my own terms. I couldn’t afford to spend time letting others’ need for productivity dissuade me from enjoying my life, as I had before. I got eight hours of sleep daily. I always had breakfast. I didn’t drink coffee until the second semester, when I realized that going to my ECON 101 lecture was pointless if I was always a few head bobs away from falling into a post-lunch slumber. I took long walks with no set destination around Ann Arbor, for no reason other than that I love walks.

I did all these things because I wanted to have a healthier lifestyle. They also coincidentally checked all the textbook ways of increasing productivity, although productivity was no longer my focus. Instead, happiness was. This was my stint in the “all-natural” college student life.

As soon as my walks ended — marked by when I’d look down at my phone, startled that an hour had passed — I was mentally rejuvenated. However, I wasn’t more focused than I’d been before. I’d sit at a desk to work on an economics problem set and my mind would wander off into thinking about when I should get dinner, which would turn into looking at each dining hall’s dinner menu, which — after seeing it on Mosher-Jordan’s menu — would turn into watching a Berbere chicken recipe on YouTube. After a regrettable two hours in which I’d browse Substack to keep myself from browsing Instagram, I’d do a deep, drawn-out sigh to signal to those diligently working around me that my “work” was draining me, too — there is no community stronger than one created from pain.

All of this is to say that I was no more productive than I had been in high school. I was getting the same amount of work done, albeit with a healthier and considerably saner mind. Even so, I was unhappy with what I had done so far in college. I came here to discover and create myself, but I only learned I lack stores of focus and discipline.

My family and friends’ love for me won’t change based on how successful I am. Yet, I need to know that I tried — that I failed in good faith. I want to know that I’ve laid it all out on the table, that I explored at least a few iterations of myself I enjoy being. I want to give myself honest criticisms for my weaknesses, instead of for things I’ll never know if I can or can’t do. I want to be worthy, to no one but myself.

Therefore, I’ll drink the coffee, so long as I haven’t had more than three cups that day. I’ll shamelessly contort my back in positions understood by doctors as horrific, just because I work better when I’m hunched over my laptop. I’m willing to violate the terms of my eight-hour sleep schedule because to go to sleep on a good idea for an upcoming essay would be a crime. For the first time in a long time, my eyes are open: I’m able to see, challenge and question the world.

If college is a dystopian hellscape bent on productivity and ambition at the expense of one’s mental health, I want part of it.

There’s nothing noble in this. I haven’t fooled myself into believing that my newfound work ethic will allow me to upend the pressure to be this productive for future generations of college students. My reasons for defining my worth by how much I accomplish are selfish, not unlike those of my high school classmates: working hard makes me feel good about myself. I’m hooked on this feeling.

As Doechii raps on “DEATH ROLL,” “I love the way my ideas flow when I’m not scared.”

When caffeine and sugar hit my system, my most primal fears — that this task is too big an obstacle to tackle, that there are others more deserving of this position and that I ought to put down the pen — dissipate. My focus sharpens. A mist is lifted from my eyes. My gears turn. I work hard, and I love that I can. It’s not the all-natural college student life that I would have in an ideal world, but this isn’t my ideal world.

This is me adapting to the world as it is now. Now is all I have.

Eventually, however, the caffeine subsides, no amount of white noise audio is enough to shock me into focus and my sugar intake becomes too high. My fate then slides past the various blockades I’ve built to distance myself from the pain necessary to doing good work, only for it to plop into my lap.

Statement Columnist Isabelle Deng can be reached at dengisa@umich.edu.

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