If you have been keeping up to date with my column publications, you would know (based on my last column) that I was recently in the trenches and in the midst of midterms. As of this past Wednesday, I finished all my midterms for the fall 2025 season — just in time for finals!
When I finished my midterms, a strange feeling of uneasiness fell over me. Not because I was stressed or busy or anxious, but rather because I had nothing to stress or be anxious about (other than getting those grades back of course — all hail the curve).
It’s a weird feeling — being in a place where there are no upcoming exams or life events or just things I have to worry about. In college, that space is almost always unattainable. In my three years of Tufts, it seems like there has always been something that I have to stress about or work on. But, for the first time in my tenure here, I found myself at this intersection of serenity and unease.
Of course, my brain did not stay quiet for long. Within hours, it had found a new project to overthink and worry about: studying abroad. Well, ‘worry’ is a strong word, as I was just researching potential places to visit while I’m in Barcelona next semester. (If you have any suggestions, please stop me when I’m running late to my classes!)
After spending my previous two weeks in Tisch Library’s Hirsh Reading Room burying my head in textbooks and Canvas and searching up GPA calculators, it was nice to look at pictures and videos of Florence, Casablanca and Toulouse (not to make anyone jealous, of course). With it though came that same feeling of unease. The same weird feeling I had when I finished midterms — re the beginning of this article — came back to me, but this time for something completely different.
Isn’t it strange to think about where we are? Like, what are we doing? Who are we?
Out of everything in this world, here we are. I’m in the middle of Tisch Library, studying at one of the best universities in the world, researching places I can go visit when I study abroad next semester in one of the most beautiful cities in the world. Wow. I don’t even know where to start. How lucky I am to be able to even write those words.
It’s hard to zoom out and look at the big picture when you are in the middle of daily stress. Just last week, that feeling did not even come close to crossing my mind. Instead, it was filled with anxiety about my exam and worries about my coding assignment. I spent my days hoping the hours would tick faster and the slides on Canvas would flip by quicker, thinking to myself, “Oh, I just have to make it to next Wednesday and all will be good.” At the end of the day, I should be grateful that my main stress is economics exams. I should be thankful that I get to study and I get to code for 20 hours.
But that’s just not realistic. And that’s okay.
It’s human nature to fixate on the stressors and the bad. It’s easy to measure time in deadlines. Gratitude doesn’t come easily. It’s unrealistic to fault ourselves for not always being happy and content with how lucky we are because sometimes it just doesn’t feel like it. Sometimes, it feels like every turn is the wrong turn and the walls are closing in faster and faster.
In a world that constantly reminds us to ‘practice gratitude,’ it can feel like a personal failure when I don’t consistently feel blessed amidst the chaos around me. We are always surrounded by and available to a relentless stream of information, deadlines and comparisons, making it nearly impossible to maintain that ‘zoomed-out’ perspective. The pressure to be constantly aware of our good fortune can, ironically, become a source of stress.
While I can intellectually recognize my luck and fortune — to be studying at a world class university, planning a semester abroad — the emotional truth is sometimes simpler: It’s also okay to just feel tired, overwhelmed and uneasy without having to justify it against a global scale of chaos.
Perhaps, then, the goal isn’t to permanently zoom out, but rather learn to toggle the lens. To be fully in the stress of an exam one week, and to allow ourselves to be fully in the unease of the quiet the next, without judgement for either. The truth is, the unease isn’t a sign that I’m doing something wrong or have completely forgotten how fortunate I am; instead, it’s a sign that I’m moving, that the scenery is changing. It’s the price of admission for a life that includes both grueling midterms and dreams of Barcelona.
So, for now, I’m just trying to be here. Not to force gratitude nor to feed the unease, but to simply acknowledge this strange, quiet point on the map. Our journey is all of this: the frantic cramming, the sudden and abrupt quiet, the dreamy planning and the ultimate guilt for not enjoying it all perfectly. It’s a messy, human process.
For every single one of us, everything that is happening, every feeling, every moment — all of this is what it means to be right here, right now…
Presently,
Ben Rachel
