I'VE READ THOUSANDS of witty quotations in my lifetime, but as much as I'd like to picture myself a sage philosopher dispensing advice from on high (from trite ones like “No matter what a man's past may have been, his future is spotless,” courtesy of John Rice, to other quotes), I'm not that kind of person. Thus my senior column will take its inspiration from something I have a feeling most Uni students hate — laissez-faire economics!

Hehe, not really. I know that topic would bore the pants off pretty much everyone in the school, excluding perhaps some in the second-floor history office. I would like to talk about “laissez-faire,” however.

For those of you not taking French, the all-powerful Wikipedia says that laissez-faire is “a French phrase meaning ‘let do' or ‘hands off.'” And that, ladies and gentlemen, has pretty much been my philosophy for my entire senior year, or at least certainly the second half of it. Or, as the all-knowing Beatles put it, “Let it be.”

Of course, this philosophy cannot be taken literally — otherwise, my calculus homework never would have been finished (and adopting that mindset once in a while sure was tempting!). No, instead, I applied this way of thinking whenever I would have otherwise have gotten mad. Here's how, when faced with a typical upsetting situation, my thought train went:

“Well, hey, that sure was pretty outrageous/upsetting/annoying/irritating. But you know what? It's fourth quarter my senior year. I'm just going to let it be. There's just no point in letting this get to me.”

In fact, this is a great method for dealing with all sorts of stressors in life. I'm not advocating a head-in-the-sand approach, and there are certainly things to be up-in-arms about … but there's really nothing like that in high school.

Cliques, hot lists, the latest romantic gossip — these are all things I wouldn't normally care about anyway, and my laissez-faire attitude only gives me another level of protection.

Recently, I've been able to dismiss even things I once would have been outraged about. The mediocre speaker who ruined an otherwise wonderful culture fair with half-founded accusations of white privilege (or male privilege, heterosexual privilege, socioeconomic privilege, take-your-pick privilege) — well, normally, I would have written an outraged column about that. But I figure there's enough things to get your blood pressure up in the world, and I should hardly let this be the most important one.

(By the way, all doubts I had about the fair itself were fully assuaged when I first saw it; it was excellently organized and very well done.)

Horror of horrors, I even approached my calculus AP this way, by resolving not to let myself get upset about it. Math, politics, other personal troubles … as another song says, “Don't Worry, Be Happy.” Some people take politics very seriously and personally, but whenever debating people at Uni, I always remember to have fun, and not at their expense, either. I could quote hundreds of song titles and lyrics saying essentially the same thing — don't forget to smile.

Now that I think about it, this is pretty much the way I've been living my life. Don't get flustered about anything, don't freak out, stay calm, things aren't so bad, life's A-OK. This attitude is not so difficult because, from an objective view, my life really hasn't been so bad. However, I'd like to think that even were I in worse circumstances, I'd persevere and maintain this upbeat, optimistic mindset.

It's been a fun ride, guys. To the upcoming seniors who face the dreadful specter of college admissions, it's really not so bad. To you all, try not to let things get to you.

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