Dear Pepper,

    My friends keep coming to me for homework help. Every time they ask me, I can never say no. I feel bad for doing it because it often turns into me doing the entire assignment for them, but I crave the validation too much to stop and they seem so happy afterward. I feel bad for doing it because they won’t end up learning anything and it’s not their work they submit, but I feel even worse if I don’t do it because I want to be the friend everyone can depend on. But they don’t even bother to hide it anymore and it’s gotten to the point where I prioritize their assignments over mine and often end up staying up until 2, sometimes 3 am. What should I do??? I know I need to set boundaries, but I feel like it’s too late…

     – Sickened Sophmore

Dear Sickened Sophmore,

    On account of your friends, it is their weak will, ignorance of the effects of their requests of you, or selfishness that they do this. It is perfectly fine to ask for help, maybe even a lot of help once in a while. But when one becomes presumptuous enough to put their own laziness over your time and abuse your goodwill, or need for validation, that is unacceptable. Friendship is about mutual respect and holding each other as equals. Their behaviors betray the opposite. Now, while it is good to want to be dependable, helping from a need to be validated is a dangerous thing. It hurts both parties; the person who helps extends themself too far, and the one who seeks help does not grow. Nearly all problems can be solved or even avoided if one follows their conscience, so do as your conscience tells you, and only do things that make you feel stronger. As for talking to them about this, speak clearly and specifically define what is the problem– your own fault for wanting too highly validation, and their fault for using you. Then propose a compromise: you will help, not do, help them with a certain number of assignments per month and if it really takes up your time, they should do something nice for you, like buying you a drink at Starbucks.

    -Pepper

Dear Pepper,

    I think I’ve found my soulmate. The problem is that he lives halfway across the country. What do I do if I’m never gonna meet him?

Dear Scared Sophmore,

    While emotions are complicated, and love is one of the strongest rulers of the mind. It is not a wise counselor. The chances that that person is your soulmate are quite slim. However, futility is no reason to stop an endeavor. Futility merely requires you to adjust your expectations and look farther into the future. This would be recognizing the unlikeliness of your desire ever being met and that life is a series of cycles and the future can not be predicted. It may be that in three months, you do not like this person, or it may be that in two years when you’re a senior, you’ll be flying out to them. The best course is to try to know them and try to maintain a friendship with them in the coming years. This will make it so that you won’t act rashly, but you will still leave open the door to a closer relationship with them. However, remember a wise line from Ecclesiastes: “All is vanity and a striving after wind.”

    -Pepper