The Red and Black

Issue date: 4/6/09 Section: Opinions

SHANNON OTTO

I have an addiction - and I know I'm not alone.

Every morning, minutes after I wake up, I head straight to my trusty Mr. Coffee to make not one, not two, but about five cups of coffee.

I drink some with my breakfast, then pour the remainder in my travel mug and head to campus. And sometimes, I make a quick stop at the Jittery Joe's in the MLC between classes to refuel.

It's hard to pin down the day when I officially become dependent on the caffeine gods, but I think it began a little more than a year ago. I was taking 16 hours of course credit and working 35 hours a week at the very newspaper you're reading, while trying to land a summer internship or two.

I always had to keep going, never stopping to take a break - I had to be the best.

And I can't be the only one who feels this way.

I had an "aha!" moment a few weeks ago. I opened up The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and read a column by Maureen Downey - "College women are running on empty."

"Somehow, we've communicated to young women that because more options are open to them ... they should do it all and do it well," Downey wrote. "No wonder some of them are worn out from the effort."

This epidemic is entirely too common. Sleep-deprived females are running rampant on college campuses, trying to make perfect grades, volunteer, lead clubs and organizations, have a social life and fit in a workout or two.

But sooner or later, it's going to catch up with us.

Are we juggling 10 activities to make ourselves happy, or to please others? And who are we really competing with?

I talked to some of my guy friends about Downey's column, and I received mixed reactions. Some of them didn't understand why women try to do so much.

Others didn't think the "do all, be all" attitude only affects women.

"Men are just as busy as women," some of them said.

I haven't reached any steadfast conclusions about whether or not men are as exhausted or stressed out as women, but I do know that several studies back up Downey's column.

UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute conducts an annual nationwide survey. Results have indicated that women are harder on themselves than men are and rate their abilities in the classroom lower than men do - even though women generally earn higher grades.

Additionally, the American Health Association found in 2004 that women report higher levels of stress and depression than men.

College is stressful. And by the time you reach your senior year, there's the added pressure of finding a job (and in this economy!) so you don't have to move back to mom and dad's.

And young girls today are told they can do anything - so we hear that message and understand something different. Just because we can do anything doesn't mean we have to do everything.

"[Women] must get A's. We must make money. We must save the world. We must be thin. We must be unflappable. We must be beautiful. We must be perfect. We must make it look effortless," wrote Courtney E. Martin in her book, "Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters."

We have enough pressure on us already - why do we always feel we have to be more, have to do more?

No matter how hard I work, there's always going to be someone better than me - and I'm OK with that. The rest of you should be, too.

As one of my best friends put it, "it's futile to compete with anyone but yourself."

Decide what you're truly passionate about, and give it the time and effort you were giving everything else.

And if you hit a wall and no amount of coffee in the world will cure you, do yourself a favor and just get a good night's sleep.

We'd all be a lot better off if we stopped trying to please everyone else in our lives and did what we want to do sometimes.

That same wise friend told me, "it's as if we are addicted to praise."

Let's try to kick that addiction. The coffee one? Well, I'm still working on that.

- Shannon Otto is the opinions editor of The Red & Black.

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