Students take on many different lenses. After I graduated, I found this to be true in life. Sitting in class, students can become consumed by questions: Does my professor like me? Does the person I sit next to enjoy my company? These intrusive thoughts, aimed at validating our identity, bleed beyond the classroom into interactions with co-workers, friends, and even a cashier at a supermarket. We begin asking ourselves these questions early in life to seek approval from our parents and others around us as a tool to help us form an identity. We use the feedback we receive from encounters to judge ourselves and reflect on how we are perceived by others. In school, we tend to do this in a more significant way. Our sense of self is in the throes of development. Being surrounded by critiques all day, the human psyche uses all the verbal and non-verbal signals from people around us to construct a reality of self. This is a natural part of life, and as someone who has attended college, I can tell you that this will continue to happen throughout your entire experience.
What is important to remember about building and rebuilding our sense of self is that people change. We are fluid beings that, whether we allow it to or not, find it paramount to be in constant change. If you find yourself getting overly defensive, on edge, and generally confused about your purpose, then there is a good chance that you are stuck in formaldehyde. The chances of constricting your growth are likely. Not if, but when, this happens, when you notice this restriction, I want you to question what, and more importantly, whose lenses you have been taking on? Is it your parents who seem to only be concerned with how your grades are shaping up? Is it a new friend that you are trying to impress? Perhaps it is a romantic partner, and more often than not, when you look in the mirror, you are seeing yourself through their eyes. We even do this with prospective employers, people we have never met. You may want a specific job terribly, or you want to be accepted by a new group, and you begin to ask yourself – how do they want to see me?
I write this after being stuck with the same lenses for almost three years. I have internalized how people from my past look at me. I find myself in this dualistic state of wanting to change but only doing what I know. I notice fear rising as I make a new plan. It forces me to play it safe. In turn, I never get the experience my soul is craving. I once watched an interview with one of my biggest inspirations – Ethan Hawke. Hawke is a playwright, actor, and student to the world around him. In the interview, he explained the power of “playing the fool.” Play the character in life who may get humiliated. In other words, take the risk of being a fool. It’s similar to the age-old saying, “You miss one hundred percent of the shots you do not take.” As cliché as it sounds, the expression always rings true.
However, on a deeper note, Hawke is trying to stress that the ‘shot’ to take may not appear until we make it happen. There is no path until we walk it. Sometimes, creating new opportunities means reflecting on who we are, who we surround ourselves with, and, more importantly, what we want for our future selves. In doing this, we find that there are views and beliefs about ourselves that need some adjusting. In my life, I fear the lenses through which I see myself may stop me from unfolding along a new path – new endeavors that may not work out, that may not suit the old me, but will certainly have a lesson for the new me. I relate these lenses to being stuck in a glass box. You can see the world outside, but it’s not tangible.
Finding ourselves outside of that box requires some humility, some shedding of old stories and identities that we hold close to us. Talking to a new person on your way to class, listening to new types of music, or creating a painting – not for show but for artistic achievement, are ways to encourage a natural evolution of the self. When we don’t do this and perhaps hang on too closely to our highschool friends, an old boyfriend or girlfriend, we get stuck in the box again, feeling days passing without the beauty of distinction. I know just as well, if not probably more than the next person, how hard it can be to stretch into the future and away from the past, but in my opinion, it is the bravest thing a person can do. It is also vital for alchemizing a life saturated with rich experience and fulfillment. As you go through this next year, semester, class, graduation, whatever it is, consider your lens for the world. Consider playing the fool. •
Photo: Loren DeQuattro
