As Boston College students, it can be tempting to hide our struggles in the constant quest to appear perfect. Embracing our truths can help us to understand ourselves and experience the world around us as genuinely as possible. Authentic Eagles is a series that gives a voice to the people who have experienced firsthand the trials and tribulations of being one’s authentic self at BC.
Lucas Pers, CSOM ’14
The irony in writing this is that, even as I sit here trying to figure out how to begin this article, I am consumed by thoughts of what you will think of me. Will you look at me differently? Or, if you do not know me at all, will your entire notion of me be derived from what I write here? How much do I actually want you to know about me? I can try to push these thoughts out of my head, yet they will always find a way to worm their way back to the forefront of my mind.
Everything we do, say, wear, eat, watch and study becomes part of the image that we project to the world, and I’ve always been a bit obsessed with trying to control this image. I think everyone is guilty of this, which is why I hope that this is helpful. I know that I’ve spent far too much time and made far too many choices that I might not have otherwise to protect the image that I wanted people to see. As corny as it may sound, it’s taken me a long time to figure out how to simply “be myself” and not worry so much about how the world perceives me. Even now, I can’t shake the voice in my head that whispers, shaking my confidence, making me someone I’m not.
The aspect of going to college that I was most excited about before freshman year was the possibility to reinvent myself. I had gone to school with the same 250 kids since kindergarten, and I had never truly had a chance to be with people who hadn’t known every awkward phase and mistake that I’d ever made. I thought that this would finally be the time to shed the aspects of my personality that I hated and become a new person. No one would know the real me, all I would have to do is act like the person I wanted to be and I’d transform. If I could be popular, then my doubts and self-consciousness would disappear and be replaced by unwavering confidence. That’s how it’s supposed to work, the guy who is at every party, who everyone knows, who doesn’t have a care in the world.
When I got to BC, I started to break out of my comfort zone in any way I possibly could, go out more than I should and make choices that I never would’ve made before. I tried to meet everyone I could and be at every party I could. I tried so hard to force myself to be the fun, popular guy; the guy that I always imagined would be simply and utterly happy.
As I went through my sophomore and junior years, I found it hard to distinguish between the changes that I was making in my life because I wanted them and the changes that I was making to protect my image. I stopped pursuing my English major and transferred to CSOM because I thought that I needed to take classes that “mattered.” I found myself often lashing out at my friends and having more erratic mood swings that would range from supreme confidence to complete depression with little reason to either state.
I would go out with people that I wasn’t necessarily friends with, just because I felt that I needed to be out. I remember one Thursday night when I was at the bar, talking with one of my “friends” who I seemed to never see unless I was at least seven drinks deep, and I realized that I had absolutely nothing to say to him. Not only did I hardly know anything about him (partly due to my horrible memory while drinking), but he knew absolutely nothing about me. We talked for about ten minutes, I excused myself, and left to go home and watch TV until I fell asleep. This happened more frequently than I’d like to admit; yet every time I would go out I was convinced that this would be the night that I would finally feel comfortable and my anxiety would melt away.
I had so many people who I considered to be my friends who didn’t truly know anything about me. They didn’t know that I was, by my own definition, an English nerd who started a slam poetry club in high school. They didn’t know how self-conscious I was. They didn’t know these things because I never told them, because I didn’t want cracks to appear in the image that I was trying to create. The worst part was that I began to shun my best friends simply because they were the only people at this school who truly did know the side of me that I was trying to hide.
I kept spiraling, not sure exactly who I was or what I truly wanted, until the end of last year. After finishing school, two of my friends and I decided to go on Birthright, 10 day trip to Israel. Being thrown onto a new continent, with new people, on a trip in which we slept for about 4 hours a night, made it hard for me to be anything but completely honest with those around me. For the first time in years I truly let people see who I was without trying to hide behind a persona. When I got back to the US and began my summer living alone in New York City, I found that it was much easier to continue being honest, continue being myself, than it was to reconstruct the image that I had tried to create at BC. For the first time in forever, I felt comfortable sharing myself with people and not trying to craft a persona that I wanted to become.
I think many times we get so wrapped up in the BC bubble of perfection that we start to truly believe that those around us don’t feel the same insecurities or have the same quirks that we do. Too many times we try to shove the “uncool” portions of ourselves out of the way and project perfection. The problem is that everyone has parts of themselves that they try to hide. No one tells the world about their weird obsessions or fantasies, and thus it’s easy to forget that everyone has them. These parts of ourselves that we try to hide from the world are often the same parts that help us find our passions and truly connect with people that we truly care about. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m nerdy, awkward, and horribly self-conscious sometimes, and I’m okay with that.
