I study on Sunday afternoons. So, the other day, as I stared dully at my dimly lit computer screen, struggling to remember what was so important about the Rule of Thirds in photojournalism, I was looking for any excuse to take a break from reading and rereading my carefully taken notes.

My first distraction came from the lyrics to the background music I had streaming from my extensive iTunes library.

“Don’t get stuck in the meantime. There’s no such thing as the meantime.”

After hearing this bit of wisdom from the Louisiana-based indie rock band Givers, I could only think of it as a challenge – a challenge not only to me, but to everyone.

American culture dictates that we all constantly look to the future for progress and new opportunity. We reject history and run from our past in the hopes of embracing our own uniquely crafted, highly idealistic future – an image shrouded in romanticism. As citizens of a relatively young nation, Americans constantly have their eyes fixed somewhere in the distant future, just beyond the horizon of today. This is where the idea of the “meantime” comes in.

Often, we are so concerned with what is to come that we forget about the present. We have effectively all become stuck in the “meantime” – the awkward limbo between what is past and what is to come. It’s that uncomfortable window of time when you’ve arrived at a party just a little too early, and you’re stuck waiting for more people to show up, for someone to cut through the blaring silence, for things to finally begin. And this is precisely how we live our lives – eternally perched on the edge of our seats, waiting for it to start.

From the time we first learn to speak, we are prompted with the question of what we want to be when we grow up, eliciting adorably innocent answers such as rock star, president, and superhero. And, by the age of 10, we are all filling out worksheets asking us questions about where we see ourselves in 5, 10 and 20 years.

When you think about it, this seems like some pretty heavy stuff for young children to be worrying about.

These two examples provide an unexpectedly poignant insight into the foundation of American society that has got us all looking ahead.

But, in the quintessentially American fashion of paradox, we are also constantly being bombarded with catchy phrases and clichés that remind us to live for the now. “Carpe diem,” the highly overused phrase championed in the cult-classic “Dead Poets Society ” may have evolved into “YOLO,” but these are all just different names for the same thing.

It’s as if we are being stretched in two ways by two equal, opposing forces. While one side reminds us that we must prepare for our future and think about the potential consequences of our actions, the other counters, telling us our time is limited – when we stop thinking and start doing, we truly experience life.

Ultimately, like many things in life, the only way to approach the central paradox of how to live is to obtain a healthy balance. Human nature calls for us to seek improvement, so while we’re grasping for the wondrously illusive green light symbolizing the eternal American Dream mentioned in Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby,” we should also take care to make sure that we are not unknowingly getting ourselves stuck in the meantime.

Tara Massouleh is a freshman majoring in journalism and English. Her column runs weekly on Wednesdays.