What Do We Do?

Silvie Leaf ’26

As we watch the city upon a hill, with its supposed foundations of liberty and freedom crumbling and decaying, we are left to wonder what to do. Do we prepare for our upcoming calculus tests or do we have a breakdown about tariffs? The options appear grim, to say the least. It feels as if this country has been bleached of color and repainted in a distasteful red, splashes of (slightly less-distasteful) blue only occasionally shining through. New York Times headlines make me want to call in sick daily, hiding out in a secluded bubble for the next four years. Yet I have an attendance record that cannot afford to be tarnished by my horror at the idiocy of a president taxing an island exclusively occupied by penguins. My biology teacher won’t push my test back even though people are being wrongfully deported. My literature teacher will still give us a reading quiz even when affirmative action is abolished. My life, our lives, move on. Though perhaps unintentionally, we are occupied by distractions and the solid structure of our everyday lives. We go to school, we sit through our classes, we learn, we think, we go home, and it repeats. The headlines start to become background noise and Jupiter moves to the top of our growing list of worries once again. Yes, it's scary and yes, I get closer and closer to calling in sick, but life goes on. Go to marches, write letters, fight for change–but also learn to keep going. As idiotic as it sounds, all you can do is take things day by day, homework assignment by homework assignment, and test by test. Find positivity in normalcy and keep going.