Jordan, ‘10

Can I give all of the prospective students+everybody else some healthy advice?  Don’t reinvent yourself when you start college.  Or, if you feel you must, then pick two or three big life-changing things to change and stick to those–but don’t even change those through reinvention.  Create a new existence for the self that already exists. 

My orientation week in first year was pretty regrettable.  Some of the girls in my orientation group (and even some of the guys) were trying so hard to make themselves seem like other people.  The problem–that’s too much work and not worth it.  In the end their little cliques broke up–some girls didn’t speak to each other again–and I was grateful that I had been my boring, strange self and survived the last eighteen years spiritually and emotionally and physically intact.  I’ve had a lot of experience being picked on, you see.   It wasn’t just poking fun–it was the insecure witch hunt of people who didn’t like that I was me and saw no reason to change to meet their expectations.  It was the permeating dislike that fell around the bubble that protects my Self in shards.  It was targeting everything they saw I’d cultivated for myself–to make my life better, if not more socially accepted.  So when I got to college, I was prepared to be ignored or roughly spoken about–especially since this isn’t the biggest campus (and gossip, unfortunately, does travel fast around here–but who cares that much to exchange insignificant information that way anyway?). 

I’ll admit there was some immediate separation–and by separation I mean between me and other people and probably some of that is my fault for being guarded.  Yet here I am three years later, well-adjusted, healthier than ever, with great friends (the bad ones have fallen away in due time), and looking forward to every day of my life because I don’t do anything that I know isn’t good for myself and my Self and won’t make me happier. 

One true pursuit in life is the pursuit of personal happiness (and if you think that’s a selfish way to spend your life just think about this–who is more likely to do something good and nice for someone else–the grouchy or the inwardly peaceful person?).  College is a time for creating yourself, so if you want to create a new happier self–one that better develops (but doesn’t replace) what is already You, then you’ll find your time in college well-spent and a great teacher.   

College is not, however, a time of reinvention.  Reinvention always seems so derived, so structured.  It is creation within an already defined system–a system which may or may not be conducive to true individual growth and expression.  It’s like saying, “Hey, I’ll rewrite my masterpiece because you say it’s crap.  I don’t know you, but if I rewrite it maybe you’ll want to know me.”  Wrong.  Just.Say.No.  You’ll never get along with everybody, but personality-clashing is a beautiful thing.  It’s not something to fear.  It’s something to put away and save for that moment in time when multiple perspectives will be useful and necessary for enlightenment.  You can, however, treat everyone well, wish them luck on their own journeys and go about yours.  Interaction will come and go, but if you don’t like who you’re alone with, then it’s really all for nothing, right?

Journey on,

Jordan

p.s. I saw two comedians perform on campus this weekend, both of whom were on Comedy Central:  Ted Alexandro and Louis C.K.

Ted Alexandro

Picture taken in association with Mike McIntyre, Cleveland.com

Louis CK

Picture courtesy of Just for Laughs.

Quotes of the week:

 ”You never change something by fighting the existing reality.  To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” -Buckminster Fuller

“Your current safe boundaries were once unknown frontiers.” - Unknown

“The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives.” - William James

“Creativity can solve almost any problem.  The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.” - George Lois

“Dare to be naive.” - Buckminster Fuller