I remember the first photograph I published for The Daily Pennsylvanian: avocados at ACME.
This was October 2022, and I had just completed my first photo shift without actually knowing how to use the camera (the drone doesn’t count). Derek, the editor during the shift, patiently guided me through Adobe Photoshop and captioning. This picture wasn’t the last — I’d go on to rack up over 1,000 photo credits over three years — but it was the first credit I could call my own. I went home to my dorm that night with a feeling of excitement from creating something new.
The math here is simple. I started with no credits and ended with one. Fast forward three years, and I was serving as the president of a 142-year-old newspaper. There, I couldn’t tell you the math.
This past December, a close friend from back home, Brendan, told me that we tend to overestimate how much we accomplish in a year but underestimate what we accomplish in five. He’s said this to me numerous times. It has served as reassurance in my head, but lately I’ve started thinking about it differently: there are two clocks running, and they are distinct.
The fast clock asks whether something was worth it. I’ve received this question numerous times, often when someone finds out what being president of the DP was like: 30-hour weeks, 2 a.m. Slack notifications, and weekends swallowed by whatever broke that week. The fast clock wants the answer immediately and in a binary sense; it must be a yes or a no with a clean sentence to recap the experience.
For those asking, my answer to the fast clock is “yes.” The job was worth it. I became a more patient person. I learned how to handle frustration. I matured through being handed responsibility. By almost any metric, I became a better version of that first year who walked into a photo shift and completed an avocado assignment. The fast clock looks at the experience and says, “Yes, it was worth it.” Great. Let’s move on.
I don’t think the fast clock is wrong. But it’s just answering a question with too small of a scope.
What my friend was really pointing at was the slow clock. It asks something harder. It doesn’t ask for an answer right away but rather asks what I’ll be able to point to in five years (or 10) that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Most importantly, it makes me think whether the trades made by a younger version of myself feel worth it. Whether the composure I learned would continue to define my future self or fade once I no longer need to practice it. Whether the judgment I built making decisions at 21 turns into an instinct that defines my career or turns into a story I tell at class reunions. Whether the things I gave up — weeknight dinners, a slow-starting 20s, and nights at Smokey Joe’s — turn out to be the real deliverables, or the presidency turns out to have been the gauntlet I needed.
The fast clock doesn’t have those answers. The slow clock does, but it’s still ticking.
I do have data that I will feed into the slow clock whenever it’s ready. A lot of it has names. Jesse and Anna, whose guidance and kindness took a first year and turned him into a photographer and then something I still don’t have words to encapsulate. Ted, who reminded me that an organization this serious survives partly by refusing to take it too seriously. Caleb, whose late-night chats made the DP feel like a place always worth showing up for. Norah, who made me a more creative version of myself just by being in the room. Katherine and Christine, whose steadiness made the toughest weeks on the job feel so much easier. Peter, whose chats on history and current events kept reminding me why journalism is so important. Max, Brendan, Pranet, Srijan, and the friends back home who kept checking in. My parents and my sister who supported me in taking the job, knowing how demanding it would be.
The slow clock will take time to answer, but it will eventually. When it does, the answer will be shaped by those names.
So, here’s the honest ending: The fast clock is a resounding “yes,” and it is right. However, it’s not the clock that matters. Yes, the slow clock is fundamentally flawed. In five years from now, there will be a different version of the person that wrote this piece, reading the dial through whatever avocados life throws on top of this one. The math won’t resolve cleanly, although it might just get a little more certain.
Ask me in five years, anyway. I may be eating an avocado.
ABHIRAM JUVVADI is a College and Wharton senior studying history and finance from Morrisville, N.C. He served as president on the 141st Board of The Daily Pennsylvanian, Inc. Previously, he served as photo editor and news photo editor. His email is abhiram@sas.upenn.edu.
