I like to imagine that I'm wise enough to be suspicious of my own desire to seem wise after all, even good advice is usually useless, since it rarely changes the recipient. I believe we can be happy in almost any situation, that external conditions determine our well-being much less than we normally think and that our enjoyment of Dartmouth must not depend on class year, gender, major, dorm room or anything else over which we have some volition. Take Greek affiliation, the subject of this column and perhaps the most divisive issue on campus, with people on both sides recruiting and urging the '14s to make the same decisions they made, decisions that many people believe define the "Dartmouth Experience" more than anything else. My point is that rushing or not rushing a house is an objectively neutral decision with regard to your happiness. What matters is why you rushed or why you didn't and whether those decisions were right for you given the context of your own life.
I for one was very ambivalent about rush sophomore Fall. I wasn't especially excited by the prospect of pledging a frat, of being in a frat and above all, of not being in a frat (especially if all my close friends were in one). I was unsure how I'd pay dues every term, or whether I'd have enough time to devote myself to the house or whether I'd have to drink more than I wanted. I was unhappy with house rankings, with being asked what house I belonged to after meeting someone for the first time and with affiliation's silent pleasure of knowing that not only can't everyone join, but that one's own house is slightly better than others.
I ended up rushing for three reasons: 1) I wanted to challenge myself socially, 2) I wanted a place I could come back to and feel connected with as an alum, and 3) I wanted to have more fun. Pretty standard stuff. So far Greek life has been very good for me. It hasn't, however, been the defining experience of my time at Dartmouth, and I'm happy with that.
I strongly believe that a key part of college and life itself is balance balance between work and play, scheduled and unscheduled time, present and future, solitude and sociability. Joining a house has been all about helping me find these balances. Finding balance hasn't always been easy or enjoyable, and I still feel pretty unbalanced or stressed or anxious sometimes. But I feel happier now than I ever have felt in my adult life, and I'm sure Greek life has played a role in that, if for no other reason than that it added an additional dimension to who I am and introduced me to some of the nicest and most impressive people I've ever met. Intramural softball games beneath trees with sunlight like confetti through them, epic games of Risk, late night study sessions over Keystone, canoeing to Gilman Island to help build a log cabin. These have been some of my favorite memories as a "bro" and as a Dartmouth student.
I'm not trying to convince you to rush or not rush a house. Rather, I mention all this to give you some context for your own decisions. It might help you to know that many of my best friends are the friends I was closest with before I pledged, that I've never lived in the house, that I know many people who are unaffiliated and very satisfied and that I also know several people who are affiliated and very unsatisfied. The point is that the more time and effort you spend trying to please other people for the sake of pleasing them, often the worse you feel inside and so the more you try to please them, the more you increase your unhappiness in a ridiculous hall-of-mirrors cycle of self-awareness and unhappiness.
The entire ballgame, I think, in terms of rush and Dartmouth and maybe life itself, is confident decision-making. It comes down to perspective, doing what we want because it feels right and not because we think it should feel right even if it doesn't. Whether that means Greek life or not is something we must each decide for ourselves. My only hope is that in the end we're happy.
