An open letter to the stranger who asked if I was OK

At a school with over 40,000 undergrad students, it’s easy to feel lost amongst a sea of faces.  Most people walk around with blank expressions and headphones in their ears—trying to make it through the day to day.  Going to classes, homework, exams, extra-curricular activities, (trying) to have a social life, and (trying) to get enough sleep…it’s exhausting. But most days, we all walk around with a nonchalant attitude, trying to mask any stress or worry in our lives.  Being the cool, calm, and collected college student becomes the everyday attire.  Until one day—when the calm and collected image is impossible to portray.

Anyone who’s a perfectionist knows how intense life’s pressures can feel.  In college, there’s so much required of each student and when you’re aiming for perfection, it can feel like you’re drowning.  With wanting each assignment to be flawless and each exam grade to be an A, your sanity slowly slips away and you can’t imagine how you’ll continue to keep up.  But you look around and other people seem to have it all together, so you feel a need to keep it moving before you fall behind.  You promise yourself that you’ll make time to study daily and start early on all papers and projects.  Simple enough, right?  It’s all about planning.

Suddenly, all of life’s obligations (apart from your student status) are hitting you straight in the face.  Family, friends, internships, jobs. And those plans of starting early turn into unplanned moments of procrastination.  The work is piling up and those tests aren’t gonna study for themselves.

So after studying a really decent amount (I made flashcards–the whole nine), I took my first exam for one of my Psychology classes.  I felt confident walking into the exam–but the walk out of the exam is usually a different story.  The exam wasn’t too difficult and I felt like I’d gotten many of the questions correct, no doubt, but what about the questions I wasn’t so sure about? I’m a terrible guesser and I tend to psych myself out on multiple choice tests. I mean, I’m an English major. I’m a writer…tests are just not my thing.  The post-exam anxiety was setting in heavy before I had to walk to my next class.  That’s when I couldn’t hold the blank expression anymore, and not even music blasting through my headphones could console me of this defeated feeling.

The tears were streaming down my face and there was no hiding it.  As I sat on a secluded staircase in  Voorhees Mall, trying my best to shield myself from the public, I cried my heart out about everything that was stressing me out.  My perfectionist mindset was poisoning my mind, unleashing all kinds of self-doubt.

As I was stuck in my own pathetic little world of sadness and exhaustion, I was suddenly startled when a stranger walking by stopped to say something to me.  He simply asked if I was OK and if I needed someone to talk to–he had such kindness in his voice and sincerity in his facial expression.  When I declined his sweet gesture and told him thank you, he walked away, but then came back a few minutes later to truly make sure I didn’t need a listening ear.  He then told me his name and told me what building he’d be in if I changed my mind.

To this day, whenever I think back to the stranger who asked if I was OK, I’m comforted by the fact that selfless, caring people still exist.  Even when I was a crying hot mess on a rainy and cold day in New Brunswick, this kind soul took the time to acknowledge my despair when he could’ve easily kept walking.  So I wish to say thank you to my kind stranger–thank you for restoring my faith in Rutgers humanity.  And to anyone who takes the time to read this, just know that the smallest acts of kindness can mean more than you realize.