Responsibility

When I was a sophomore in high school my dad took me along on a business trip to New York City.  I had always wanted visit the Big Apple, so the trip was a big deal for me.  I can’t remember what day of the week we left on, but I know that we were there for a total of three days (including the days we arrived and left) and that the first day I wasn’t missing school (so it must have been the weekend), but the second and third day I was. 

 

The trip was really fun and we went and saw a lot of the major tourist attractions in the city.  I think we had to work (I mostly carried camera equipment around for my dad and his employee), but in my memory that only took up a few hours of our time there. 

 

Like most high school aged kids probably would be, I was excited both to travel as well as to skip school.  The first day we were there I kept feeling excited.  However, the second day, when I otherwise would have been in class, I started to feel guilty and maybe a little depressed.  I remember being on the subway and seeing kids on their way home from school.  Watching them all I could think about was how I was supposed to be in school and wasn’t.  Maybe I had been so fully indoctrinated by the school system that I could tear myself away.  Maybe I was just having teenage hormone surges.  Maybe I missed my friends.  Whatever the reason though, I realized that I actually felt bad about essentially playing hooky on my dad’s business trip. 

So fast-forward ten years: I’m a graduate student writing a thesis, and sometimes writing other things.  Some days I don’t get up until 11 AM, and don’t go to bed until 4 AM.  Even if I have a lot of responsibilities (especially compared to when I was in high school), I can pretty much do whatever I want, whenever I want.  In other words, everyday is much closer to that time on the subway than it is to my days in class.  The funny thing is, I don’t usually feel guilty at all.  I can sit here at two in the afternoon writing my blog and still feel completely productive. 

 

I don’t know what this means or if it means anything at all.  I am pretty sure though that I conceive of responsibility differently.