On Nov. 25, parking at the University of Utah will become a veritable disaster.

Students, faculty and staff stand to lose significant chunks of real estate in the wake of the Olympic onslaught. Available asphalt will disappear faster than evidence at an Olympic bribery trial.

Despite the land crunch, the commuting nightmare and the distraction of the 2002 Olympic Winter Games lurking somewhere just beyond the morrow, the world is full of bigger problems than parking shortages at the U.

The coming months will present significant challenges, both on and off the city streets. Finding a public space for your vehicle looms as a potentially sizeable pain in the rear. Yet life remains good if parking represents our biggest hemorrhoid.

Consider the fast approaching pandemonium an opportunity? not to complain about the lack of parking stalls and the vast sea of tourists, but to reassess what is truly important. College offers so much, as do the other aspects of our lives. Parking problems do not foreshadow the apocalypse, though sometimes it feels that way.

Upon first learning the scope of our parking dilemma, I went ballistic. How can the university neglect its students and employees, abandoning us in the dead of winter, leaving our fate in the hands of the cruel and remorseless parking gods?

After several years of marathon commutes, run-ins with ticket-givers and the endless road construction, my patience terminated. The apparent Olympic fiasco served not as the straw that broke the camel’s back, but rather as the 12-ton sledgehammer that crushed the student body.

Then came the realization that I’d let things as stupid as parking and traffic ruin far too many days.

As a freshman, I seethed upon receiving a ticket for accidentally parking in the Latter-day Saint Institute or Religion lot (not understanding what property belonged to whom). The drive from West Valley made me grumpy enough.

In fact, my first two years at the U consisted of cranky commutes matched with piles of parking tickets and the occasional explosion of road rage.

I once kicked myself for accidentally leaving my lights on, coming out of class to a dead battery. I screamed at the sky when my alternator quit in the annex building parking lot. And a fender bender on the way to school wrecked my week.

Occasional parking tickets, traffic jams and profanity laden diatribes colored the days since those original freshman follies.

Only now do I look back and realize what an idiot I was.

If parking poses the biggest problem in our day-to-day existence, whether over the course of an academic career or even just during the Olympics, then amazing good fortune certainly shines upon us.

Strange as the suggestion sounds, the coming days provide a unique opportunity to see what we can do without. How many of us can survive bereft of our cars?

All over the world people exist and even thrive on next to nothing. If we can’t carry on without the use of our motorized hunks of metal, what does this say about our character? It reveals our country, and particularly our generation, lacks the resolve and toughness Americans love to brag about.

I’m not attempting to sound condescending. Believe me, I’m in the same boat as you. I can’t remember the last time that driving where and when I wanted wasn’t an option. Life has spoiled me to the point that luxuries are considered necessities.

Along with tightening the slack that convolutes so many of our lives, these next months offer other intriguing possibilities. By not riding the bus or TRAX, students neglect new experiences.

I know the bus routes of San Francisco, the Metro stops of Washington D.C., and the subway trains of New York like the back of my hand. Yet I couldn’t catch a bus in Salt Lake City if I tried.

My car has become my livelihood, my sanctuary and my savior. Yet I do not even think of it as such. I take it for granted.

Owning a car, receiving an education and holding a job are not entitlements. Our position is fortunate, and the approaching Olympic inconvenience puts in perspective the insignificant nature of many of our problems.

If parking causes pain, realize that at least you own a car to park. If the commute to school or work hassles you, understand that not everyone has a job. And if picking up the kids or sharing the car with your spouse compromises your free time, be thankful for that family that loves you.

Aside from realizing that our blessings far outweigh our burdens, know that riding the bus or light rail offers a rare opportunity to share a common experience. Too often, our lives consist of parochial concerns. This is a chance to share ourselves, our humanity. We typically dart every which way in our little steel boxes.

But riding with others serves as a symbol, a reminder that in some ways our fates are tied. Ultimately, our society is headed together in one direction or another.

Mass transportation shows the average rider a marvelous cross-section of society. Business people ride the bus. Crazy people ride the bus. Students, mothers, tourists, squares and freaks all ride the bus.

In the end, we don’t have to like it. All I’m asking is that we try it.

Next semester will be inconvenient. But don’t let it be more than that. Don’t let it ruin your semester or blot out the sunshine that each new day may bring. Don’t let parking problems overshadow the more important joys and tragedies of life.

Students who allow the parking fiasco to consume them will waste the college years that vanish all too quickly.

At the same time that this parking mess is simply a regrettable inconvenience, let it also be more.

Let it be an opportunity to get on the bus, ride into someone else’s neighborhood and meet a stranger. Maybe the person in the next seat over will freak you out. But you’ll be no worse for wear because you’ll still be alive.

Especially in light of events on and after Sept. 11, parking concerns seem minor in a world that is too big and full of opportunities to let inconvenience spoil us.