"Imagining Me"

"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning to work on becoming yourself." - Anna Quindlen

The hardest thing about living in the world, in my opinion, is that there will always be something you desire to live up to. When we're younger, we are taught or teach ourselves to acquire role models. There are always people we "look up" to, and these people we look up to ultimately influence how we decide to plan our lives. Society buys into this desire and takes it one step further: it extends beyond admiration and idolizing, and places an image as an idealizing one. It is no longer enough to be using someone as a model by which or upon which you decide to base your own life, but you are, in fact, driven to become EXACTLY like a specific person. One can easily recall the original Michael Jordan marketing brand, which encouraged everyone to be "Like Mike." Individuals often became so obsessed or addicted to "the Jordan Brand," that they bought products with the Jumpman on the side and even sometimes became firmly convinced that there was something about those shoes or that jumpsuit that could upgrade their own game.

The truth is, however, with idolization comes a standard of perfection. The people who we use as "role models" become perfect images in our eyes of who or what we wish to become. And so when these people fall short, sometimes our dreams are crushed. Think back to the time, perhaps, when your dad couldn't fix one of your broken toys, or even when you beat him at a game of basketball or even at video games. In the latter case, you probably felt a surge of triumph because beating your pops basically equated to you officially being grown up. But at the same time, there's a loss of something. You still love your father, obviously, and he will always be special to you; but now that you've beaten him at something, your father is now your equal. You no longer hold him above you or see him as a standard.

A similar case can happen in terms of celebrities, and even in terms of 'ordinary people,' people like family, close friends, and mentors, whereby they hold an almost perfect image in your eyes until you catch them at a point of vulnerability. You catch a student leader on campus who you've always admired drunk and vomiting at a house party. A young lady you were always interested in, you see her dancing raunchily with a young man at a bar, or even hear tall tales about her 'getting around' on campus. A person who you respected as someone you could always depend and count on, you catch in the middle of a nervous breakdown at the school library. In all of these cases, your image of that person changes. Unconsciously, you create an identity for this person that is based on an image and not the person her or himself. We ultimately consciously or unconsciously crucify people just because they 'fall short' of our expectations or image of them.

This is ultimately where I find myself now. As a self-proclaimed (but community-appointed) student leader in his senior year on campus, I wonder in a sense if I've "outlived my time." Certainly, in many cases, people who have worked with me in the last two or three years have seen how I work under pressure; they've been exposed to seeing me not always show up on time for events, not always speak confidently and clearly in meetings, not always plan effectively and in a timely manner for organizational endeavors, always planning something for an organization but never quite being caught studying. I definitely feel as though my "stock" in especially the UT Black Community has fallen somewhat, and perhaps it's funny or even ridiculous that I put so much importance on this.

I'd like to believe that at one point, I too was a standard for campus leadership, for being a good man, for whatever. I cannot honestly say that I am anymore. But I'm slowly becoming... okay with that. When I say I'm becoming "okay," I don't mean that I'm settling for mediocrity in terms of student leadership or what have you. I am still a student organization Chair, and I am certainly employing my learned lessons from last year with this year's administration. I am becoming better and more disciplined at being on time and being organized and effectively planning. But I still make mistakes, I definitely still fall short of my expectations. What's changed, perhaps, is that... you could say I'm becoming okay with being myself. It's no longer about the image I carry on campus; it's a lot more about who respects me as is, without the filler, without the shirt and tie, outside of meetings and events. It's about being honest with myself about certain harsh realities (e.g., certain young ladies will only be attracted to certain particular groups of guys right now, knowing that I don't fit academic requirements to do certain things I wish to do), while also seeing these realities as potentially malleable facts. That is, I could do something to improve my situation, but I should only do it because I want to do it, not for others' sake.

I've given up on being perfect. I spent the last two decades trying to be that, and I've only really made myself always feel less than... probably because it's something I can never be. I realize that I can't be broken down... because I'm already broken, but I'm also fixable. It's up to me, however, to pick up the pieces. And now that I've accepted all this, there's a greater task at hand: becoming okay with and coming into who I am. As the Kirk Franklin song goes, it at first was definitely hard to see... but I may actually be heading "to a place of no insecurities/... and not letting people break me down... because I'm Imagining Me."

Stay tuned...