On campus, I’m always a little stressed out. Even when I’m not doing work, I’m thinking about the work I could be doing. There’s always another problem set, another email, another thing I said I would do but haven’t gotten to. 

That stress follows me whenever I hang out with friends. An hour at dinner is another hour I’m not doing my ESF readings; a walk back from class that turns into a long conversation is 20 minutes I didn’t spend checking things off my to-do list. Those little moments always seemed like “doing nothing.”

This fall, I went on an overnight camping trip for EPS 5, a one-unit geology class about how the California coastline formed along the San Andreas Fault. That’s the whole class: one weekend of driving down the coast to take in the rock formations. I had planned to finish my rhetorical analysis essay on the bus. So, when I lost service somewhere on Highway 1, my first feeling was guilt. There were so many tasks I could have been doing. But at that moment, the only thing in front of me was the people in that van. 

With nowhere else to put my attention, I turned to the girl next to me. Jenny, it happened, is also from Florida. She told me how much she misses the warm water and white sand back home, just like I do.

On our hike at Pacifica Quarry, I fell into step with Avery, who told me about her passion for equitable education and sustainable development. Before long, our conversations devolved into rants about the parts of campus life that wear on us: the hurdles of making new friends and the constant feeling of falling behind. 

That night – after traveling along the San Andreas Fault, and learning more about geology than I ever thought I would – ten of us walked down a rugged trail to the beach and danced barefoot in the cold sand while Ahmed’s speaker blasted “Riptide” by Vance Joy. Then we collapsed in a circle, the full moon illuminating our faces and the waves ebbing behind us. Livia asked, “If you weren’t the main character of your own life, who would be?” In other words: who else matters most in your story, besides you?

We all thought for a minute; it turned out to be one of the hardest questions any of us had been asked in a while. But soon, we found ourselves spilling our guts. We confided in each other about older siblings who acted as role models or grandparents who took whatever means necessary to achieve success, or friends from back home who we still call every day. I learned more about these people that night than I had about many of my other peers since getting to Stanford. It brought me joy, hearing about who they loved and who made them who they were.

The next day, as we scarfed down lunch at San Gregorio State Beach, Milla proposed we go in the ocean. None of us had brought swimsuits, but we went in anyway. The waves crashed over us again, and again, and we kept getting back up, soaked and laughing too hard to breathe. There was no reason to do it. It certainly wasn’t “productive”. But it was the best part of the whole trip.

We had only known each other for 30 hours, but it felt like weeks. For once, none of us were somewhere else in our heads. We weren’t half-listening while mentally drafting an email. We were all the way there. 

Now, I still feel guilty anytime I find myself having a bit of fun. But I know what we were doing, and it wasn’t nothing.