What Ferris Bueller Taught Me.

By: Emily

Graphic by Emily

I wake up this morning with one thought on my mind: I want to go back to sleep. It’s too early, and I really don’t feel like going to work today. As I lazily force my morning bagel down my throat, I find an old favorite movie playing on TV: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. For those few unfamiliar with the film, it is about a popular high school senior who decides to skip school and instead go on crazy adventures around the city of Chicago with his best friend and girlfriend. Now while I would have loved to watch the film in its entirety, I was only able to catch the very end before I had to go slave away making minimum wage.

At the end of the film, after Ferris and his friends spend a day singing in a parade, viewing priceless works of art at the Chicago Museum of Art, and nearly avoiding running into Ferris’ parents who think he’s home sick with the flu, he sprints back to his house in an attempt to keep up with his lie. As his parents make it upstairs, we, hearts racing, find Ferris in his bed, coughing up a storm. They bought it. Ferris got away with his crazy shenanigans. Feeling on top of the world, he looks into the camera and says the infamous line: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.”

Now as I put on my uniform, ready to face the daily grind once again, I think about what Ferris said. Since I’ve been home from college, my days have consisted of eating, sleeping, and working minimum wage at a job that doesn’t really excite me. Is this really what I want to be doing with my summer? How many more summers will I have just to goof around before I'll have to face the real world and not have "summers" anymore? If there’s any time for me to be singing on giant parade floats and sneaking into my neighbor’s pool, it’s now. And I’d better do it soon before I let the opportunity pass me by. I know I’d much rather be doing that than working all the time, so what’s stopping me?

I clock in, grab my name tag and hit the sales floor with a yawn. I force a plastic smile on my face before helping customers. I am over it. Something needs to change and it needs to change now. Ferris never would have stood for this kind of boring lifestyle. Taking some advice from my main man Ferris, I think it’s time for me to start stopping and looking around before it’s too late.