I recently had occasion to learn that I have the words to a disturbing number of Justin Timberlake songs stored away in my head. This worries me because, in so far as I can remember, I never set out to memorize the lyrics to more than a dozen of his pop songs, but it happened anyway. Don’t get me wrong: I love Justin with all of my heart, and I will happily sing “My Love” for you if you ask. I’m a little upset, though, because I like Jay-Z almost, if not quite, as much, and I had to work very hard to learn the lines to certain Jay-Z songs, while with Justin, lyric memorization took no such effort.

With Justin my memorization was, on the whole, accidental, but with Jay-Z, it was intentional and hard work. This contrast bothered me: It hadn’t crossed my mind until recently that I literally know by heart whole songs by Timberlake. I guess I knew, somewhere in the back of my mind, that this was probably the case, but I had never thought about it before. Much less intended that it be so.

And this is the problem: More and more it seems like whatever is going on in my head (and I’m worried that it is mainly just pop lyric memorization these days) is happening in a dark, smoke-filled room “somewhere in the back of my mind,” where men in tweed sit smoking cigars and making decisions about my life. And what they are deciding is that I should know all the lyrics to “Hey, Soul Sister” (which, really, I’m OK with, because who doesn’t like Train?).

I don’t like that I’m not entirely intentional about the things I do. I don’t want to be a stick-in-the-mud and live my life out of an appointment book, but I think I’ve rushed to the opposite extreme. I’m realizing that, in my fear of being fenced-in by schedules and commitments, I’ve basically abdicated the right to make decisions for myself, and if I don’t make my own decisions, who’s going to? (Answer: the men in my head wearing tweed jackets, smoking cigars.)

Now I’m not really that concerned about my unintentional song lyric knowledge. I love listening to all sorts of music, and learning the lyrics to songs is an understandable and predictable byproduct of that. This unintentional knowledge is interesting, though, because it’s reflective of this tendency I’ve developed to just do what I want to do when I want to do it and not think about the effects of my actions on me or, perhaps more importantly, on other people.

I don’t like having plans because I don’t want to be tied down to things, but I’m beginning to wonder whether this is not just a euphemism for saying that I am both rather selfish and trying to avoid responsibility of any type. Neither of these are character traits I’m interested in cultivating; in fact, I’m rather embarrassed. I’ve been developing these habits unconsciously, and, while it’s bad enough that I’ve been unreflective about my habits, what’s worse is that these attitudes have turned out to be unhealthy; if we lived in another time, we would call them vices.

A fellow with an eye for the obvious once observed that Rome was not built in a day. More to our purposes, G.K. Chesterton noted that “You cannot grow a beard in a moment of passion.” Things worth doing, like building Rome or growing a beard, must be done intentionally. You can achieve neither objective by just going about things willy-nilly. In the one case, you have to plan streets and construct buildings and teach people Latin, and in the other case you have to, first, remember not to shave, and then, as far as I can tell (not having extensive experience with the subject myself) you may have to trim your beard as you go along so you don’t end up looking like John Muir.

Reaching worthwhile goals seems to require determined effort, even if that just means paying more attention to both how and why I act the way I do.

Enjoy your Friday off, and from the bottom of my heart, let me wish a Happy Easter to all!

— Leigh Dickey is a junior in global studies. She can be reached at [email protected].