There are some moments at Yale when I feel like a kid in a candy store — when I’m scrolling through CourseTable’s list or all the sauce names on tomorrow’s dinner menu and don’t know whether to laugh or cry or turn off the computer all together. You get flooded with platters of possibilities, feeling at once freed and overwhelmed.

We see this abundance of choice marketed, at least, as one of the crowning appeals to a place like Yale. In this comfortable bubble of elms and gothic buildings, we’re encouraged to peruse the aisles in search of inner callings that might capture all the edges and angles of ourselves. We can take risks and try new activities, usually with a spontaneity unburdened by practical worries. Dip into Aristotle. Try out dancing. Or perhaps take the music theory class on a whim because you’ve been interested but never had the time to.

Experiment with the arts. Dabble in the sciences. The beauty of being in college is that there are still an endlessly infinite number of ways to experience it. Our decisions are revocable, our obligations reversible. The consequences of our choices along our journey of self-exploration are minimized. We can come and go as we so please. We have the space for mistakes because the hard rules of life haven’t started to apply here yet. We have the luxury of keeping our options open and broadening our horizons.

Too bad our fists are only so big, our pockets only so deep.

Here’s the problem: open a few too many doors, and you also risk losing yourself in them. It’s easy to slip into a state of perpetual browsing as we wrestle with how to best celebrate our hyphenated selves. I’ve changed and re-changed major plans, flaked off from groups and extracurriculars I had once thought would interest me. Sometimes I’m afraid I will have missed out on something better, something I haven’t uncovered yet but could have, if only I had continued searching for a little longer. Faced with an overload of potential paths, it’s tempting to throw up our hands and do nothing.

Our deepest fear shouldn’t be a bad grade or heated job market, but rather the possibility that we’ll never settle — that we’ll continue leapfrogging from one interest to the next or knocking at the doorsteps of one project after another, just barely skimming our toes against the water’s surface each time.

In the end, it’s the commitment that matters. For all the new intellectual and social opportunities, I’ve found that there’s nothing quite as comforting as those tiny reminders of constancy: the reassuring text, the presence of an open ear across the dinner table or just a phone call away, all the people who’ve opened their arms to me and never closed them. Relationships, progress, social change — the most rewarding parts of life and the most pressing global challenges often require a kind of perseverance and persistence that restless wandering usually can’t fulfill.

Negotiating the fine distinction between discovery and dedication will always be a difficult task. We’ve arrived at Yale, after all, and the chance to earnestly search for something that fulfills us is an experience in itself. Discovery takes time, and we should continue to pursue the quirky hobbies and interests that color our lives. But often that also means sustaining the work and keeping with the skill even when the results may be fruitless, the future uncertain, the outcomes unclear. In a time when beginnings are told more often than the middles and ends, we shouldn’t lose sight of our unfinished plans or all the tiny, thankless day ins and day outs that make change possible.

At some point we’ll simply have to learn to pick something out and stay with it. We’ll have to stand up