By Eden van der Moere
“My name is Steven and I am not running for anything.”
That’s how Steven van de Graaf, 19 years old, started his campaign to run for nothing. Originally from Barendrecht, Steven shocked the community with his bold post in the midst of election season. The reactions to Steven’s statement were very diverse, some were very enthusiastic and introduced #StevenForRASAChairAnyway, while others presumed it was a spoof to hide Steven’s ulterior motive: to run for something. In an exclusive interview with Tabula RASA, Steven shares an inspirational message with us all.
What are you running for?
Precisely nothing.
Why are you running for precisely nothing?
Simple version: I’m not running, because I don’t want to. Over the course of the past weeks, I have flirted with the idea of running for AAC Chair a couple of times, but I’ve always come up empty. To be fair, even yesterday night, at the Elliott party, I was – again – flirting with the idea to become AAC Chair, only to come up empty again.
But basically, I’m not running, because I don’t want to. I figured that being part of a big board would be a very nice challenge for me and very rewarding. However, the position is packaged with a hell of a workload, a certain amount of pressure and a certain amount of stress. So in the mental equation that I performed, I figured, ‘might as well not’.
Do you have an inspirational message for your voters?
Yes. Please do run. No, scratch that.
Thank you to all of you who have asked me to run. I’m sorry to disappoint you. But do find inspiration in my resolution to not run. Do not run, because others want you to. Do not run, because others pressure you to. Only run, if you want to do so yourself.
Eden van der Moere, Class of 2017, is a Literature and Linguistics major from Goes, The Netherlands.
I cried a little at the end.
great motivational speech for my morning run!