Illustration by Joaquin Kunkel

Everything we do at NYU Abu Dhabi is explicitly goal-driven — whether it's writing an essay for a class, reading a book for a discussion or training for a marathon. There's nothing wrong with working towards a goal, but recently I've found myself doing less for the sake of personal satisfaction and more for a grade or a prize. It's like an endless cycle of ticking things off a checklist — submitted core paper, check; exercised this week, check; did laundry, check. It is the way I've lived most of my life – doing things for a concrete reason that seems legitimate on paper.

That's why 24/X was such an eye-opening experience for me. The event, held by the Interactive Media department, paired ten students to come up with a product within 24 hours around the theme of Push and Pull. The prompt was broad, and we were only limited by the deadline and our imagination. Being paired with someone I didn't know and being expected to create something was, by itself, pretty amazing.

The fact that there was no prize or a tangible reward for completing the challenge gave me a sense of freedom I didn't expect to have. Almost everything I’d done in a public sphere up to that point had been for a very defined purpose. Drafting and revising essays for classes were always done with an A in mind. Participating in competitions, I always had my eye on the prize. But somehow having absolutely no stakes made me even more driven to work on the project my partner and I came up with.

I felt I could do anything I wanted in that 24-hour period, and each and every one of my ideas and efforts would be valued. The number of times I’ve felt my attempts at task are not at a particular standard or ‘good enough’ is immeasurable. Not having a bar already set due this being the first event of its kind held certainly helped, but with no specific goal to reach my creative juices flowed a lot better, and I didn’t feel confined within a box of restrictions.

I think that at times we get too caught up in completing tasks and pursuing target after target at neck-breaking speed. It's great to have goals — they help us achieve things and stay on track, but there's something to be said for doing something just for the sake of it. Write poetry just because you want to; run just because you want to; produce a project within 24 hours because you want to. College, by its very nature, is supposed to be hitting a bull’s-eye and then moving on to the next one and the one after that. We pass exams, submit papers, mechanically socialize and repeat the process.

Friedrich Nietzsche said: “One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. It's that ultimate chaos which makes us so magical as humans.” We can work toward goals and achieve practically anything, but there still remains some value in pursuing an activity for no other reason than wanting to do so. Maybe saying I wrote a short story which is readable both forward and backward just for the heck of it won't get people asking me why I would waste my time. Maybe it will. Either way, I'm going to start doing more things just because I can, and less because I have to.