The Brown & White

There is one thing that dominates our conversations this week: The Rivalry. We are incredibly lucky to have such a competitive spirit built into the very nature of our years here at Lehigh.

This week marks the pinnacle of the yearlong cycle of competitions with Lafayette. It is not just about football or field hockey or other sports; our love for The Rivalry is about the competition itself.

I have found that Lehigh students will do just about anything in order to "Beat Lafayette." They will turn out in droves not only to cheer on their home team. Let's use this enthusiasm towards volunteering, recycling and even registering to vote.

Other schools have rivalries to be sure, and I would be remiss if as an Ohioan I did not say "Go Buckeyes!" But this is our rivalry, The Rivalry. Go out and use your competitive spirit not to just to drink in excess but to evoke change in your life.

We all know how much drinking this campus will do this weekend. Since I know you will drink anyway, there is little point in discouraging it. Just be safe and don't drink and drive!

But what happens once this week is over?

Once you get over your hangover, do you just toss those beer cans in the trash? We should extend our competitions! Let us see which school can recycle the most bottles, plastic cups and cans. I bet that hundreds of pounds of recyclable material will into the garbage this weekend. Sure, we would be doing a good deed, but most importantly, we would be beating the competition.

Once we graduate, I doubt that we will find a rivalry that people are willing to dedicate themselves to as strongly as this. The Rivalry offers us an amazing opportunity to see what healthy competition can do. Use it as a learning experience. See how far people are willing to go to show themselves as superior.

Life outside of the "Lehigh Bubble" is not just about winning a race or cheering on our friends. It is about competing economically, competing for natural resources or competing to stay alive. Many of us will never know what it means to compete to stay alive, but our actions do impact those who do.

In the back of our minds, we know that by running the tap a bit too long we will inevitably waste water, but who cares? We have plenty of it! The next time you do that, realize that some states are fighting legal battles over who controls the nearby rivers. And abroad, vicious legal battles would be heavily preferred to bloodshed over the most precious of resources, clean water.

If recycling is not your thing, do something else to help out. And bring your drive to win with you.

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be the best at what you do, just try not to do it at the expense of someone else. Out there, in the real world, losing for us may mean not getting a pay raise - a challenge to be sure - but it is just that: a challenge.

For too many people it means so much worse. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said earlier this week, "today, more than one billion people are hungry." In a U.N. press release he warned the world that, "more than 17,000 children will die of hunger - one every five seconds, six million a year - even as the planet has more than enough food for all."

Go ahead, reread those sobering statistics. Children by the millions die every year of hunger. I believe that is something we can change. We have future engineers, business executives, lawyers and even poets and actors at Lehigh. Pick an issue you care about and bring the drive you have to win by making a difference.

I am not trying to put a damper on your fun this weekend. I would fail in my message if I did. I want to make you realize how wonderful it is that we can see opposition at its purest and in safest form. Learn how to harness your competitive spirit, and in the words of Gandhi, "be the change you want to see in the world."