Some Thoughts

The best way to describe my college experience thus far is as a process of demolition and rebuilding. I came to college with only the experiences and knowledge that I had accumulated in the first 18 years of life. I suppose I wouldn't have gone to college in the first place if I thought that I knew everything, but there was definitely a huge part of me that felt like I had at least a few things figured out. Both fortunately and unfortunately I guess, it took a very short time for me to realize how very little I actually understood. This was the beginning of a slow and painful crumble. College--and when I say college I mean a strong concentration of education, people and experiences-- stripped from me the only identity I had ever known up to that point. It challenged every belief I thought I held dear and forced me outside of the comfort zone in which I grew up.
Fortunately for me, this path has not led me in downward spiral but rather through a series of hills and valleys which have served to both strengthen and humble me. Now, as I approach a pending graduation, I feel like I know myself once again...and, more than that, I feel as though it is MY-self, my own.
The toughest part of this journey by far has been overcoming the desperate desire to "convert" others. When I use the word "convert," I don't necessarily mean it in the typical, evangelical sense. What I mean is, every time I made a discovery, had an experience or learned something valuable, my first instinct was to bring it back to the place and people from which I came, as though I had been sent out on some kind of familial mission. I didn't think of it in this way though. For me, it was more about finding truths-- small "pearls of great price"-- that enabled me to see the world in a new and more fathomable way, and wanting desperately to share that enlightenment with everyone I loved. What I learned, slowly and painfully, is that it is impossible and even unnecessary to attempt this. Not the sharing per se, but the expectation that others will go "Ah, you are so right! I cannot believe I never thought of it that way!"
As we all sat around at our midterm retreat today, many people expressed fears about returning to Westmont or their homes and families--afraid that others won't understand or accept some of their experiences and the resulting decisions they have made for their lives. As I listened, I felt a sense of peace creep over me. Too often, I have feared my beliefs and feelings, who in their infant state, have not always been easy to defend or even communicate. Too often, I have studied voraciously only in order to explain myself to friends or family members and feel validated in their eyes. But there, sitting in that circle, all of that fear and trepidation was gone, swept away by two important realizations.
The first realization is that I do not really need the validation I used to so desperately seek. My experience is real. The things I know and feel are not mere whims, but the result of my entire life's journey. I did not wake up this morning and decide to care about issues of social justice. Instead, in much the same arduous fashion that I have realized I have a passion for teaching, this conviction is a result of experience, both in the classroom and out of it. Though I long for those I love to understand me and to at least recognize my point of view, even in disagreement, if (and more likely, when) they do not, my experience is no less valid.
The second thing I have realized is actually twofold. First, everyone is utterly shaped by their experience. Example: I get lots of warm fuzzies when I think of Disneyland. This is because, when I think of it, what usually comes to mind is my Dad, smiling from ear to ear and saying in his goofiest voice "We're going to Disneyland, hooray hooray!" Which, no doubt (and as his dozens of repeat stories prove) is a result of his own E-ticket adventures as a a child (like the one about hiding in the bushes after closing or thinking that the Leaning Tower was what broke Small World). Now, I have many friends who either hate Disneyland or have never been, and whenever they tell me such, I am always racked with dismay. Obviously they don't have goofy dads who put blocks in their shoes when they were five years old just so they would be tall enough to ride Big Thunder Mountain! And you can bet that, despite my loathe for consumerism and the million other negatives that enable Disney to exist, I will be that mom who tears up as she tells her kids that Tomorrowland used to be so much different.
Now, all of this only serves to highlight the second part of this realization: everyone's experience is utterly unique. Even my siblings, who have grown up with the same parents, in the same family, have memories, experiences and perspectives that are wholly other from my own. Thus, I cannot expect others to immediately understand my perspective, nor should I discount the perspectives of others. Too often I forget that the beliefs of my friends and family have been shaped by a lifetime of unique experience. Too often I find myself criticizing or judging, forgetting that I am only able to rationalize the way I do because of what I have seen or learned (forgetting that I love Disneyland because of all of my wonderful experience there).

The truth in all of this is, life is much more fulfilling when we enable ourselves to truly listen to other people--when we, instead of making judgments, attempt to understand the whys and hows of another individual. Sharing is much more fulfilling--and conducive to both learning and understanding--than judgment...at least that's what my experience has shown, haha.