“I am not what I think I am, and I am not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am.” – Charles Horton Cooley

I recently came to the realization that the largest overarching transformation I’ve had over the past year is moving away from trying to look good on paper to following what feels good to me deep down, even if it doesn’t make logical sense to myself or the people around me. After feeling empty and drained by doing the things that once sounded like great opportunities, I’ve begun to question why looking good on paper appealed to me so much in the first place, and how I can work towards freeing myself of narratives that were never for me to embody.

On this journey, I’ve found there to be more areas than I can count on my fingers that we as humans can fall victim to wanting, solely for a certain perception of ourselves to be bestowed onto others about who we are. These can include wanting a picture-perfect relationship, getting good grades, securing a job with a globally-renowned company, wearing all of the latest trends, going to church every Sunday, belonging to a certain friend group, and even consciously choosing to define ourselves by certain personality traits or physical features.

Needless to say, no one is a bad person or ‘wrong’ for doing any of the things I just listed off so that a certain perception will be able to come across to others. I know for one that I’ve fallen victim to all of the above at some point in my life and still struggle with allowing my ego to take the driver’s seat when making decisions. However, as my dad always says, be observant; doing so can provide you with the strength and knowledge required to live your best life in the long term despite being psychologically uncomfortable in the short term. And what I’ve come to know by doing just that is doing things so you’ll come off a certain way to other people is a dead-end outcome to living a fulfilled life.

The reason why that’s the case is due to the little control you then have over how happy you are with your own life. When you do things solely so other people think you’re nice, funny, smart, etc., you relinquish the capability we all have to create a life we’re proud to live and hand it over to not just the opinions of other people, but to an even more ambiguous consideration, what we think those opinions to be. This has no other outcome than keeping you from reaching your highest potential because your time and energy are focused away from yourself, successfully enabling other people to dictate your life. In other words, and to tie in the quote from Charles Horton Cooley above, by doing things for appearance, or for a lack of better words ‘clout,’ it enables things outside of us that have no validity or truth to determine how we feel about ourselves.

The biggest catalyst that allowed for me to put these puzzle pieces together was deciding whether or not I was going to run for the president of an organization I’ve been involved with for the majority of my college experience. Upon reflection, I realized that being on the executive board took me away from the larger purpose I had in mind when first joining the organization and made me look at it as something I had to do vs. something I wanted to do.

I ultimately decided to step away for the next year and become a general member again, and although I’ve known deep down that this will be the right choice for me in the end, I couldn’t help but think of the possibilities that could’ve happened if I chose to go down the other path. If it would’ve helped me get to know people in the program better and experience something new, land a better job after graduation from the leadership skills I would’ve acquired, or most transparently, be able to tell people that I was the president of a club in college.

The message that came through again and again as I was thinking through all of the scenarios is that I only wanted the position because of what I thought other people would think of me it, and that was the only reason I needed to walk away.

As the old adage goes, “what’s meant for you won’t pass you up,” but sometimes figuring out what’s meant for you requires you to say no to an opportunity so you can make space for what has the potential to come in, as scary and uncertain as it may seem in the moment. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to walk away from what we thought we wanted to what we know we truly want deep down, and the only validation we need for doing so is to evaluate which option makes us the most excited and feels the best. A rule of thumb I’ve started to consider and implement is saying no to things if it’s not a hell yes. This has greatly enabled me to follow what lights me up. Whether it’s saying no to a night out after a long week, down to starting an unconventional venture like I did with LPOL, no one knows what you need more than you do, so there’s no point in trying to control what none of us will ever have absolute control over, the opinions of other people.

There is nothing wrong with following that inner voice, even if you’re the only one doing so. If anything, it’s emboldening. We were all put on this Earth as different people with different passions to follow and different legacies to leave behind, and it would be a shame if we let fear get in the way of enabling us to live our best lives possible. Here’s to not living to look good on paper, but as a person we’re proud to be.

💘 Hanna