Lost and Insecure
As college students, we are experiencing quite possibly the most trying and troubling times of our lives. Our struggle between identity and role confusion is transforming into one between intimacy and isolation. Let's just say that when it comes to transformations, I'd much rather be a caterpillar.
An astonishing four years ago, I was sitting in a seventh period English class being lectured on the minute intricacies of college application essays. Not just a number like a GPA or an SAT score. But a chance to let your voice speak out freely through the page. We applicants, like transcendentalists and poets were to be one with nature, to choose the path less traveled. To shed ourselves of that shroud of societal norms and restrictions. To present what was inherent to our own personality and not that of someone else. We wanted, more than ever, to be different. To shine out above the rest of our classmates. Uniqueness was coveted, what others thought of us, irrelevant.
Ironically, we strove to stand out only to sit in with someone else, to be accepted by something else -- an institution of higher education.
At our age, the individual exclusion for which we strive during college applications is anomalous.
In most social situations, we want to be accepted by others. Even those of us who pride ourselves in our ability to ignore the glances cast on us by society, have, at some point or another, been frozen by its icy stare. To me, until now atleast, having a high self esteem has always meant just this. Epitomized by those who were impassioned by their beliefs and values. The ones who would do it because they truly believed it would be a personal or social improvement, regardless of what others said to their face or behind their back.
I hope you're sitting down: Rather than being reflective of our disposition, self esteem could depend on our situations. A person may not always have high or low self esteem. Instead, self esteem is the gauge on our sociometer. Increasing when we are accepted by society and plummeting when we are excluded.
Why do people frown upon those who care what others think? Is it bad for people to want to be appreciated by others? After all, we (and dolphins) are social and communicative creatures. It is in our nature to want to belong to an interlocking web of people. And, according to this blossoming theory of self esteem, inclusion is a mode of self improvement and aggrandizement.
I am an individualist if I ever knew one. There is nothing I appreciate more than contemplation and self-reflection. And paradoxically through this reflection, I have found that I too am capable of feeling pathetic and insignificant when faced with the prospect of exclusion. It hurts. And not surprisingly, this metaphorical slap in the face is even more painful than a literal one.
There's an important distinction to be made. There are those who strive to be accepted by society while maintaining the ideals and values they hold so strongly to their souls. Then there are clones for whom life is a masquerade. Those are the ones we frown upon. In describing this slap in the face, I am referring not to the desire of being who or what I am not, but the aching pain of being rejected for who I am.
Our self-esteem. A capricious child. The fickle weather. One moment soaring at the highest heights, the next, crashed at the greatest depths.
They say that to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are. So let me cut to the chase: I'd rather be rejected for who I am than accepted as someone I am not. How's that for stable self-esteem?
An astonishing four years ago, I was sitting in a seventh period English class being lectured on the minute intricacies of college application essays. Not just a number like a GPA or an SAT score. But a chance to let your voice speak out freely through the page. We applicants, like transcendentalists and poets were to be one with nature, to choose the path less traveled. To shed ourselves of that shroud of societal norms and restrictions. To present what was inherent to our own personality and not that of someone else. We wanted, more than ever, to be different. To shine out above the rest of our classmates. Uniqueness was coveted, what others thought of us, irrelevant.
Ironically, we strove to stand out only to sit in with someone else, to be accepted by something else -- an institution of higher education.
At our age, the individual exclusion for which we strive during college applications is anomalous.
In most social situations, we want to be accepted by others. Even those of us who pride ourselves in our ability to ignore the glances cast on us by society, have, at some point or another, been frozen by its icy stare. To me, until now atleast, having a high self esteem has always meant just this. Epitomized by those who were impassioned by their beliefs and values. The ones who would do it because they truly believed it would be a personal or social improvement, regardless of what others said to their face or behind their back.
I hope you're sitting down: Rather than being reflective of our disposition, self esteem could depend on our situations. A person may not always have high or low self esteem. Instead, self esteem is the gauge on our sociometer. Increasing when we are accepted by society and plummeting when we are excluded.
Why do people frown upon those who care what others think? Is it bad for people to want to be appreciated by others? After all, we (and dolphins) are social and communicative creatures. It is in our nature to want to belong to an interlocking web of people. And, according to this blossoming theory of self esteem, inclusion is a mode of self improvement and aggrandizement.
I am an individualist if I ever knew one. There is nothing I appreciate more than contemplation and self-reflection. And paradoxically through this reflection, I have found that I too am capable of feeling pathetic and insignificant when faced with the prospect of exclusion. It hurts. And not surprisingly, this metaphorical slap in the face is even more painful than a literal one.
There's an important distinction to be made. There are those who strive to be accepted by society while maintaining the ideals and values they hold so strongly to their souls. Then there are clones for whom life is a masquerade. Those are the ones we frown upon. In describing this slap in the face, I am referring not to the desire of being who or what I am not, but the aching pain of being rejected for who I am.
Our self-esteem. A capricious child. The fickle weather. One moment soaring at the highest heights, the next, crashed at the greatest depths.
They say that to wish you were someone else is to waste the person you are. So let me cut to the chase: I'd rather be rejected for who I am than accepted as someone I am not. How's that for stable self-esteem?
Comments