Finding your stylish blinders...

Simone Tift is a member of the great class of 2016 -- the members of which, collectively, have written more posts than any other class on the 650 blog.

Since this is a forum for advice, here’s mine: listen to Simone. I have known her for a few years, and she has always impressed me with her genuine and positive approach to learning and life. When someone grounded in happiness like Simone wants to give some modest advice, it seems like a good idea to listen.

Simone gears her post towards the college process in particular, but what she talks about here feels like a guide to living a happy and purposeful life. She focuses on our tendency to compare ourselves to others, and I am reminded of the three-part quotation that I always write on the board when my classes study transcendentalism: “You are not who you think you are. You are not who I think you are. You are who you think I think you are” -- the idea being that if you have a fuzzy notion of who you are, you are more likely to make decisions based on the imagined judgments of others. And then you become Gatsby who “revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from [Daisy’s] well-loved eyes”… and then, before you know it, you’re dead in a pool and nobody is coming to your funeral except for some dude named Owl Eyes who is cleaning off his glasses and saying, “The poor son of a bitch.” There’s your literary flourish for the day.

Simone goes to UC Santa Cruz where she has spent the last couple of years “living life and integrating fully into the Santa Cruz lifestyle and figuring myself out.” She is an anthropology major and history of visual art and culture (fancy way to say art history) minor, and she recently returned from a quarter of studying abroad in Cyprus. Outside of school, Simone works as a waitress at a “tacky tourist restaurant.”

Simone’s post is about assigning things their proper weight and value. “It is so easy for kids to get in their heads and value themselves based on the decisions and or accomplishments of others,” she said. “After you graduate it literally doesn't matter at all what anyone else is doing. The only thing that matters is if you are happy with what you are doing.”

- C.H.

650 words seems like SO much until it becomes so little. Trying to cram an entire personality equipped with ample trauma and the life lessons you undoubtedly derived from it into 650 words is essentially impossible. So listen to me right now. THIS. DOES. NOT. MATTER!!!

Ok well… it does matter.  But! Consider these (4 (sort of) pieces of advice I’ve gleaned from going through this process (and life):

1. We cannot allow ourselves to find value in our lives through the institution that deems us “worthy.” It simply discredits every other element to the atoms that make up you that can't be crammed into a textbox. And while we are on this, let me be the 800,000th person to tell you that college isn't for everyone (and no I’m not referencing Bill Fucking Gates) AND. THAT’S. OKAY! The college process only amplifies the perpetuation of “comparison culture,” which brings me to my next point!

2. IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT ANYONE ELSE DOES. I cannot stress this enough, and the entire world and all of society is fighting against you through its perpetuation of “comparison culture” (that super deep instagram model in that $500 bikini, your ex-boyfriend posting about how in love he is again, that one mom who will not allow you to escape their daughter’s accomplishments over FB). Put on some stylish blinders and live your own life. Try to remember that we never truly know what goes on behind the public eye and that everyone struggles as inconceivable as it seems. When we begin to free ourselves from this cyclical comparison, we regain our own sense of self-love and self-worth! We cannot free ourselves from our tendencies to compare, but we CAN control how much value we assign these comparisons.

3. Accept disgrace willingly. (That’s from the Tao.) Please, please, PLEASE: Do not allow your own frustration and remorse for your circumstance to coincide and overshadow your compassion for your friends! Congratulate them! They did earn it! Your spiteful urges (while misplaced) have no place trickling into these important relationships. And on that note: do NOT crown yourself as the guest of honor at your own personal pity party and expect the rest of the world to flock to you to console you! (refer to the first stanza)

4. Inhale and exhale. Remember that everything in life is ever changing. Personally, I like to live life with the constant reminder/ belief that anyone can do as they please as long as it isn't harming anyone else. People in your lifetime (especially at this “quintessential moment”) are going to use the word “should” more than you maybe have ever heard it… I suggest you plug your ears :)

I’m not attempting to push my beliefs or any belief at all, but allow me to elaborate. You're 17 (18?!) and you certainly don't know everything (or even what's best for you). I’m 20 and that statement sure as HELL still stands. From living life, I've come to the conclusion that this is essentially true despite any societally concocted version of adulthood. We all float seamlessly into oblivion until we don't. So I STRONGLY implore you to do what YOU want. Accept your fate as not lesser or higher than anyone's around you. Realize that if things aren't going the way you think you want them… Maybe you just don't have any fucking idea!

And another thing!

I’m not sure there IS a way to keep a soul intact (or if keeping it whole should be a goal at all for that matter) I think like all things natural a soul will weather and corrode...it is the way we tend to and nurture these lacerations that defines our own personal humanity and forms the person we become.