As children, we take – given food, we eat; given love, we accept. Our survival depends on familial support. As adults, however, we can no longer take without giving back. It’s parasitic.
As I enter my final year at the University of Arizona, I am finally shedding my parasitic attitude. During my previous years in Tucson, I have taken so much, draining my community of its lifeblood. Now I need to give back to this city at least a fraction of what it has given to me as a student who is merely passing through.
Such can be the case for any college student. Our presence in a college town is transitory in nature; we move there for a few years, take from our new community and then leave again. Sure, we pay tuition (and in this way we are technically giving) but we receive far more than our money’s worth.
I am speaking of what we are given by individuals whose presence in our lives is made possible by the university, such as your friends, your professors or your club presidents and participants. We receive gifts in the form of time, energy, motivation, kindness, generosity and so much more.
Beyond the university’s boundaries, Tucson offers murals and street fairs, Little Free Libraries and community gardens, all for us to appreciate. The land that we are on also contributes to our lives, giving us silly little lizards and roadrunners, funky plants, beautiful sunsets and sunrises and even water in the form of monsoons – or sometimes from as far away as the Colorado River. Given the events of climate change, these natural gifts are the ones that we tend to be more aware of.
Commonly associated with discussions about climate change is the word sustainability. When used in this context, the word typically refers to how we use the land, water and natural resources around us. Yet, sustainability is also applicable to how we sustain our human-made communities. We cannot expect our communities to endure forever unless we support them, nor can we expect any benefit from being part of a community unless we offer up our own positive contributions to the whole.
Yet with each passing day, we are literally leeching energy and resources out of our environment and community until there is nothing left. Everyone knows that you can’t take what isn’t there.
So let’s put something there.
Giving back can take many forms. It does not need to be as literal as becoming a volunteer. It simply means contributing to the longevity and upkeep of those communities that we are each a part of. One way I contribute to my neighborhood has been by posting a poem on my front door every week for passersby to happen upon. Perhaps you could spontaneously bake cookies for your coworkers, plan an event for one of the clubs you participate in or simply offer a friend a ride to the grocery store.
It’s not about changing the world and dedicating all of our time and energy to others. It’s also not about never accepting help from anybody ever again. Like with so many things in life, giving and taking requires balance.
I implore all of you, new and returning students, to dedicate some time in the coming year to think about this. What have you received or what will you receive from this community? How much time, resources and energy do you have to return the favor? Can you even the scales?
Particularly as college students, we are all undergoing a series of life changes and learning to integrate ourselves into new communities, whether those be social or geographic. Up until this transition from childhood to adulthood, we were able to take with abandon; as adults, we must learn to give with equal abandon.
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Fiona Sievert is an undergraduate at the University of Arizona double majoring in Anthropology and East Asian Studies with a minor in German Studies. She loves languages, wearing funky outfits, and (occasionally) being a dirtbag in the great outdoors!
