A not-inconsiderable amount has been said about the disadvantages of an Ivy League education--or, by extension, any kind of training that is widely considered to be the very best (a friend expressed a similar feeling after completing military special forces training and being consigned to Hum-V cleaning after the surge). With regard to the public and generalizable discourse, I have comparatively little to add. Obviously some people think it's the best thing, and some thing that, if not the worst, it's at least not all it's cracked up to be. I think probably it's something like both, and hampered and propped up by the preconceptions both schools of thought engender.

But, on a personal note, I find it's transformed a certain innate restlessness from a fact to an ideal. Despite enjoying trashy TV and glossy magazines and sleeping late, I generally feel better (saner, happier, healthier) with slightly too much on my plate. In high school, I could justify this because I wanted to get into a "good school." In college, I justified it because I was at a "good school" and wanted a "good job." But now, with a diploma and something resembling decent employment more or less in hand, the inevitability of this feeling is rearing its ugly head. I work plenty, and when I let myself I enjoy my job, but as often as not I feel like what I'm doing isn't weighty enough. And I'm getting up early to go to the gym before work, but I feel like 30 minutes of cardio four days a week isn't enough (and, of course, the personal trainer who did my fitness evaluation agrees) and that my desk job is going to ruin my body (as much in its utility as anything else). And I'm volunteering and freelancing on the side, but I feel like I'm not writing enough or making enough of a difference and also that both my spelling and my vocabulary are deteriorating rapidly.

But my sense -- and I suppose you can correct me if I'm wrong and I really am just a lazy piece of shit -- is that probably I won't feel like anything is ever enough and at some point I'm going to have to find a way to settle down. Although, of course, settling is figured as the kiss of death in some circles. But I'd like paid vacation days and sick days and health insurance for starters.