I was always taught to be really comfortable and confident in myself, especially in classrooms, conversations and even at concerts. At an early age, I learned about the amount of pressure that exists to feel accepted and appreciated just for being yourself.
The best analogy I can use to describe the feeling of self-awareness is like being put on display to your entire community, and then you’re forced to allow their perceptions of you to result in complete misunderstandings.
When you spend so much time with yourself, you forget how refreshing it is to share yourself with someone who doesn’t. People desperately crave realness and authenticity. But why do we reject the differences that make us authentic? Mistakes are different for everybody. For me, it’s academic mistakes, mistakes in platonic relationships and bad decisions. However, I think society has conditioned us to view differences as “mistakes.”
I don’t claim to have a profound discovery as to why we feel embarrassed or judged. However, if we accept that reality early on, and identify where these overwhelming emotions stem from and use them as tools. This would absolutely build a grounded sense of self. I am in my 20s, and I still have no idea how to navigate accepting rejection from others.
But I know that I’ll never reject myself for who I am and ultimately that brings me an extreme amount of comfort. I have noticed carrying myself that way has projected onto others around me. I went to a concert and screamed and danced and got my money’s worth. The company I had thanked me for letting them be themselves.
So, if anything, we should speak up in class and say the wrong things to the wrong people. Say the right things to the right people. Say hey to a random person and get rejected. Trial and error is still alive, and something we must readapt into society.
This generation is the future. What we see now is what we get, and we only get it once. I, for one, am so happy to be out of that stage in life where everything is the end of the world. Being too cool for anything is never actually cool – the movies lied. Have fun wherever you go, put yourself out there and see how welcoming it is.
People miss you more than you know, and for those who don’t, show them what they’ve been missing.
Blair Bernard is a 20-year-old theater performance major from Lafayette, LA.
