Column: Dear Tar Heels: we’re rich

T he story begins like most of mine do. It was a balmy Friday night, I had taken a bubble bath while listening to Frank Ocean and sipping whiskey, and I was going to a party.

Ready to roll in my mallard duck-patterned polo, I got a call from my housemate. “I found a guy on the Carrboro bike path. He lost his glasses, his phone is dead, and he needs a ride to Teague dorm. Can you swing by and take him there?”

Semi-peeved that festivities would be delayed, I nonetheless hopped in my old green Volvo with another housemate and headed to Brewer Lane.

Here’s what my housemate had neglected to tell me: The stranded dude was trashed. When I arrived on the scene, he was more incoherent than my ECON professors’ lectures. His bike was wrecked, and he kept insisting that we dial a nonexistent phone number for a ride.

I was cautious to let the guy into my car. Then he started puking in the parking lot.

We tried calling the P2P, but apparently they don’t drive drunks. I was all for calling the police, but my housemates worried about the consequences for the guy. Running late to the party and getting nowhere, I was tempted to throw in the bottle and depart.

Then something happened: Two Tar Heels walking past, also on their way to a party, saw us and stopped to help. Now there were five of us trying to ensure this rapscallion’s safe fate. Feeling peer pressure to do the right thing, I drove the guy and his bike home.

We made it nearly all the way to Teague, past the Bell Tower ... and he threw up in my car. The begrudgingly good Samaritan in me felt betrayed, but now I’m proud to have been part of that night.

You see, what I witnessed in my peers that night was what Tar Heels call the Carolina Way.

Whether we’re in class, the Pit, the Campus Y, the Dean Dome, the UL, the Brewer Lane parking lot or studying abroad in Germany, Tar Heels are united by the Carolina Way.

While at Carolina, we are measured by our peers not by our skin color, clothing brands, religious beliefs, political affiliations — but by how well we adhere to the Carolina Way.

To me, the Carolina Way means following your bliss in a way that benefits the community. That takes many forms: learning, laughing, leading, Dance Marathon, exam streaking . Two Fridays ago, the Carolina Way meant that five Tar Heels helped another find his way home.

This year I’ve written a column about economics. Economics measures value in dollars because that’s easy to measure. But I know a higher currency called the Carolina Way.

Promise me this, Tar Heels: As we enter the real world, let’s not replace the value-based currency that Carolina’s etched onto our hearts with the crass worship of salaries.

Then again, there’s no reason we can’t enjoy both currencies.