As you’ll recall — by now, my illustrious powers of rhetorical charm have you all fawning over my every word — two weeks ago, I wrote on New Years resolutions. In a slick 800-word essay, I extolled the virtue of taking things in stride, so that one turbocharged week of adrenaline wouldn’t leave you burned out for the rest of the year. “Start slowly, and give yourself time to adjust to new habits,” was the exact wording, I believe.

A mere one week later, the title of my Jan. 12 column (anyone?) has come back to haunt me: “The More Things Change, the More Things Stay the Same.” Last Thursday, I found myself up to my ears in hyper-anxiety.

Okay, a little dramatic, I admit. But I literally felt like I was drowning.

I started to freak out. Quite simply, there wasn’t enough time in the day to do it all. If only my life existed on two separate tracks. My jam-packed schedule of 20 units and two thousand extracurriculars would work out swimmingly if I could just get my social and personal life to exist in some parallel universe. With two 24-hour clocks running side by side, I’d be golden.

I knew something had to give. But part of me was still desperately trying to hold onto all my classes and activities and outside interests and do it all.

But then I started to think about it more. Why was I doing this to myself? What was I trying to prove? What was the point? Would dropping a class or backing out of a club symbolize that I was a slacker?

I was making things harder on myself than they needed to be. But that’s not too unusual. Taking the easier path is not something people at Stanford choose to do. We live at the extremes. If things are comfortable, we must not be pushing hard enough. If there’s free time in our day, we need to fill it with something productive. After all, why take 15 units when you could take 18? It’s the old Puritan work ethic, applauding the virtue in working yourself to the bone and toughing out hardship. The more we can endure, the stronger, better and more moral we are.

But is taking on an additional challenge always the right answer? After all, life throws us enough curveballs without our insisting that we bat left-handed (if you get what I’m trying to say). Trust me, life will present its fair share of challenges. When they come, we must struggle valiantly and fight the good fight; but to struggle for the sake of struggling is just, well, pointless.

In that way, we are our own worst enemies, seeking out battles that don’t necessarily need to be fought. In love, in life, in school, we sabotage ourselves. (Why do you think we’re attracted to people we seemingly can’t have instead of what’s right in front of us?) It seems that comfortable living is a luxury we can’t afford.

I know I write about the same thing every single week (hey, that’s part of my charm, right?), but that’s because living in balance is one of the most difficult things to do. We all need reminding to stay centered, especially when it’s easier and more normal to live in a world of extremes. And we all need reminding, day-to-day and week-to-week. Perhaps no one more so than myself. When I do my weekly variations on the theme of balance, it’s as much to keep myself on track as it is for everyone else.

So with that in mind, here’s something to take away for the week: let your life be easy when it can be. Just because you can take something on doesn’t necessarily mean you should. Likewise, just because something is in your power doesn’t mean you have to do it. We deserve to be relaxed enough every day to stop for a five-minute impromptu conversation in the halls or to enjoy dinner with a friend instead of working in the library. That doesn’t make us complacent or “weak;” that’s what makes us happy. That’s something I’m trying to learn — that there can be equal strength and intensity and purpose in declining a challenge as there is in accepting one. At the end of the day, it all comes down to choice and the motivation behind your actions, as I’ve probably said upward of a dozen times.

It’s a work in progress. And you can bet I’ll be back next week, updating you on the journey.

But don’t worry, dear reader, Leslie always has time for you. Help her procrastinate a little bit more by emailing her at labrian “at” stanford “dot” edu.