The community at Tufts has allowed me to be myself

There’s no ‘coolest’ group of friends in college

After the first week of classes at the boarding school I had just begun in 10th grade, I called my mom.

I lamented on having to be so normal, and trying someone else in order to fit in. My mother’s response was indicative of any parent trying to nudge reality into their child’s life (a reality that many adolescents fail to realize at age 15): “Never change who you are to impress people. Be you, and if they don’t love you for it, it’s their loss.”

At the time, those words meant little, if not nothing, to me.

I was a high schooler, starting off in an unfamiliar place that felt nothing like home. The girls around me had already known each other for a year, and were not open to the idea of expanding their tight knit group. (Or so I thought). I did not want to make new friends at the expense of losing my identity, but I did want these girls to think I was ‘normal’ enough to hang out with.

Sophomore year, my first year at boarding school

All in all, I didn’t want to give off the wrong impression.

High school graduation in 2015

So for the first few months of school I created a thin, protective shell around me. I was Livvy, but I was masked, in a sense, by a layer of falsely constructed normalcy. I held back in social scenes; I was quiet around boys; I didn’t try out for Improv even though I knew I was funny enough to be on the team.

It was uncomfortable, not being completely me, but at the time something I deemed necessary.

Three years later, called my mom after the first week of classes at Tufts. I loved it here – I felt so comfortable and ME.  In the first few weeks of school, I would come to learn that there is no “coolest” group of friends in college. Popularity is not defined by looks, wealth, or experience with boys. Popularity is defined by being your truest self.

My favorite quote is one by Bernard Baruch: “Be yourself and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.” It’s cliché, yes, but also completely true.

I always thought the people who said those types of things were the ones who had life all figured out. It was easy for them to advise others to embrace their uniqueness because they themselves did. But what we all must realize is that no one has it all figured out.

There is no formula with which to approach life (thank God, because I nearly failed out of Calculus last year), and there is no one person, or people, who know best how to live it. Those who face the most success, enjoy the most happiness, and get the most out of life are the ones who fully and unwaveringly embrace themselves.

First college party. Hell yeah. Dressed, respectively, as “toast” and a “tool”

Whether a high-school senior, basking in senioritis yet nervous for the next four years to come, or a teenager trying to navigate the sometimes pandemoniac high school scene, know this: there will come a day, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a year, when you realize that life is truly best enjoyed when you stop trying to impress people; when you take a moment to realize that there is no one quite like you.

People are similar, but no one is a carbon-copy of another. Try your hardest to be someone else. You will inevitably fail.

So here’s a suggestion: rather than trying your hardest to be someone else, why not take the easy route, and just be you? Love your quirks, revel in your uniqueness. Laugh at anyone who lives life for other people and not for themselves.

More
Tufts University