Being your own person, what does that mean?

To be honest, I am not quite sure yet. All I know is that if you really want to grow as an individual, then you have to surround yourself with people who are going to bring you up, and not down.

Recently, the past three weeks of school have been busy, not too stressful yet, but I know it will be stressful. It is so extremely important to have a few people you can really trust and talk to about anything, but it is also crucial to have some friends who are smarter than you. You would be surprised the things you can learn from other people, and they are often equally if not more mature than you, so they can offer you some damn good advice.

Two days ago, one of my close friends told me about a roommate issue. This person told me the whole story, and I tried to offer my best advice, given that I am not an RA and generally inexperienced in these matters. I was trying to be comforting and calm my friend down.

But, the way in which this person reacted made me realize something very important. If you ever give someone advice, and they reject it, then they are not ready and/or willing to be the bigger person, say sorry, and move on. Okay, that seems obvious, but seriously, it sucks to offer a friend some pretty good advice only for him/her to reject it altogether. After dealing with this busy week and lack of sleep, I decided to watch a film called Lost in Translation as my wild Friday night.

Lost in Translation was so amazingly beautiful and somewhat depressing, it motivated me to deep clean my floor.

You are probably questioning my sanity at this point, but there’s more to this odd story. I was texting a friend, who recommended the film, about the last scene in which Bill Murray’s character whispers something into Scarlett Johansson’s ear. We were trying to figure out what Bill Murray whispered to her because the audience does not hear any of what Murray says, and I felt so valued as a person when analyzing the film.

Admittedly, I am that friend that will drop anything to help someone close to me, and not necessarily take time to prioritize myself. Lately, I have been focusing so much on helping other people that I sort of lost track of myself, so, actually having someone express their want to hear me out was nice.

And, this person reminded me that surrounding oneself with the right people is an important part of learning and growing as an individual, which is what college is all about. What I have found is often the quiet, independent, and “delightfully odd” people are some of the greatest human beings I have ever met.

Of course, being your own person has factors other than having a solid group of people you can trust, but certainly, it is nice to have people to listen. So readers, go off into the world and change it, but remember to be kind to those around you and throw compassion around like confetti.