It’s easy to get caught up in the little things, and it’s even easier to complain endlessly about said miniscule items.

• “Thirty packs are, like, SOOOOOOO expensive lately. Almost $20 for Milwaukee’s Best? What a rip off.”

• “Ugh, the library sucks. I should stop paying rent at my apartment because I spend so much time holed up on the fourth floor of Davidson.”

• “It’s too cold.”

• “It’s too hot.”

• “The Isla Vista Master Plan is ruining the culture of I.V.! When we come back in 10 years, we won’t even be able to recognize the place where we learned so much about ourselves!”

• “If I don’t get an A in this class, my parents will kill me!”

• “I’m so stupid. How the heck did I spend so much time on Facebook today?”

• “Is the construction still going on? It’s been so dang difficult to bike down Pardall Road for months now. When the heck are they going to finish that crap?”

After a while, you forget to think about other people. You get so caught up in the “terrible” parts of your own life that you don’t look at your neighbor and ask how things are going on his plot of land. Despite the fact that, in Isla Vista, we live in incredibly close quarters, we forget to check up on each other.

And some people forget that they are loved. Life gets too hard, and suicide becomes a more real option. Earlier this month, fellow Isla Vistan Sean Feliciano took his own life in his Sigma Pi fraternity house. There have been a string of attempted suicides at UCSB, all of which have prompted somewhat of a community-wide discussion on the matter of local mental illness and death.

We can speculate all we want on what drives people to suicide — the economy is down, joblessness is up, and the future is looking bleak; the stress of midterms, finals, term papers, unfair TAs, and ridiculous reading assignments pile up fast; relationships, both romantic and otherwise, all seem to go wrong at the same time; everybody else seems to be skinnier, prettier, more successful than you, and you’re tired of competing; your Facebook wall stays pathetically unwritten on for weeks at a time.

But it doesn’t really matter what the general consensus says. Different things get people down. Having a friend who thought about committing suicide doesn’t make you an instant expert on the matter. And one situation might affect me completely differently than it will affect my roommate, so just because you know one person’s reason for being depressed doesn’t mean you will understand another’s.

And that’s where talking to each other comes in. More than talking, we have to actually listen. As college students, we’re currently in one of the most selfish time periods of our lives. I’m getting my education for my future, and if anybody gets in the way, they’re hindering my progress. We’re so busy with all of our units, assignments, internships, volunteer work, and [insert random résumé-building activity here] that we can’t even hear when someone is asking for help.

It’s hard to ask for a hand when you’re down. We all praise the person who pulls on her own boot straps, and to admit that you can’t do that is admitting defeat. Failure, especially in the competitive college atmosphere, is a four-letter word. Understandably, people don’t always like to scream and shout for help from the rooftops. Requests like to come out quietly, sometimes only late at night or cloaked in alcohol, so we have to open our ears all the time.

Playing the “Whose Life Is Worse?” game doesn’t count as a productive conversation, either. (“I have two tests and a group presentation this week.” “Oh, yeah? Well, I have three finals, one paper, and I had to pick up an extra shift at my job!”) Focusing on the negativity without actually having productive conversation about it doesn’t help anybody.

So, Isla Vista, slow down for a minute. Instead of complaining about your neighbor’s horrible taste in music, just give him a smile and say hello. Quit hyper-focusing on how awful this construction is or how unfair that grade is or how crazy your roommate is. Take a minute to look around and see if those who are close to you need some help. Stop judging your friend’s situation from the outside. Take a seat and have a conversation. Even though we college students might only be here for four years, this is the best community we’ve got. Let’s help each other out.

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