Afterimage 57: Miscast as a Multiple Choice Answer
Here's a clue: I was neither A, B, C, nor D.
No 57
Being present is the unique gift of being alive. This newsletter is an exploration of small ways to cultivate more presence.
Welcome to installment 57 of Afterimage.
Whenever a recent experience stands out, I leave it alone for awhile before revisiting it. I replay the scene in my mind’s eye, then observe both the scene and me— what my body felt then, and what it feels now watching. I call this processing of a past event an Afterimage.
After I see and feel the Afterimage, I invite my mind to have a say. That’s the Afterthought.
Here's what I saw, heard, or sensed that’s stayed with me recently.
Let’s begin.
Blind
During a dinner with a friend during a particularly difficult season of dating, Yumiko looked me dead in the eyes and latched onto my forearm.
“あのさー。Seriously. Why do you put yourself in the position of needing to be chosen? Don’t you see that you are in a position to choose? So powerful. And you’re not seeing it.”
I looked at her and as if coming out of a fever dream.
It hit me. I get to choose.
College results are in, both here and in North America. Big Data knowing I have a fifteen-year-old high school student at home, posts about applications, acceptances, rejections, and waitlists flooded my social media feed over the past two or so weeks.
The tidal wave of these posts about college results focused on the quantitative: how many schools a person applied to, their SAT scores and GPA, how many extracurriculars on the application. Then, how many acceptances, waitlists, rejections, and deferrals.
If the posts weren’t quantitative, they were maximalist: “What non-profits and businesses I started”.
All followed by wooooo hoooooo!!!s, or tears.
It’s hardly news the landscape is competitive. What struck me about the reels was the majority were about students wanting to be accepted by a school. I remember zero posts by the way of what made a school attractive or compelling for a student to apply, or how a campus or the students there made them feel.
It came down to this: it’s more about being chosen than choosing.
In the months before this, seeing so many reels addressing “being yourself” and “talking about your passions” in essays and interviews made me realize students know how to take a test and optimize for high scores. They know a lot less about who they are or what they are into.
If taking time to to pause and notice is a challenge for the midlife Gen-X, then it’s clear digital natives with eyeballs glued to TikTok likely require herculean effort to peel away from the screen, shut off the phone, and let the brain shift gears from its screen time speed. Only then can the work of crossing over from self-consciousness to self-awareness start.
Seeing my fairly confident fifteen-year-old — with her group of good friends, her love of world history and her passion and dedication for volleyball practice despite being an average player— I forget high school is not an easy time. I forget what it’s like, the messy cocktail of internal and external pressures and how it’s a scary time to be yourself.
Rejection carries a certain charge at any age. But for teens whose biologies make for big feelings, it’s certainly charged.
Intimacy, or “Into Me, I See”
How well is the college application process adapted to the brain of a late-teen? I’m 90% sure it’s not. What admissions officers want to know, prospective students (and their brains) are still developing, whether it’s achievements, awareness, or the ability to see the big picture in a real way. The applications process itself may be awkwardly and imperfectly forging (forcing?) that self-awareness. I can only imagine it’s why so many essays feel and sound forced.
It was probably not so different when I applied to colleges in 1991. Woulda-coulda-shouldas are easy, so instead, let me share what I’d tease out of my fifteen-year-old self today. They are:
What I love doing
What gives me energy
What I’m proud of, so far
What I dislike doing
What I want more of
What saps me of energy
What I want less of
What is important to me
My superpowers
What I’m moving toward
What I want to create
And what I need in order to feel safe enough to share all of this without feeling dumb (toward my parents) or uncool (in the eyes of my friends)
In the end, no matter how old I am, or what changes I have in front of me, I find these questions helpful for better decision-making and accountability-keeping for how I want my life to unfold.
When people think of forks in the road that change the course of people's lives, it’s usually a choice made between a couple or a few things. This job or the other. This guy or the other. This house and these housemates or the others? New York or Tokyo? A baby now, or a baby later? Stay or go?
It didn’t occur to me until writing this letter I’ve had many a fork; and my biggest was actually between wanting to be chosen and getting to choose. Wanting to be chosen was my default. As far as I was concerned, there were no choices for me to make. At least not for the teen, twenty, thirty, and maybe even to some extent, the forty-something version of me.
Looking back, I spent too many years pouring time and energy into standing pretty, being a good multiple choice answer in the line up: look the part, play the part, be good, and be chosen.
The thing is, it never really worked. Why?
Because I wasn’t ever a multiple choice answer to begin with. I was the question.
I’m the subject of my life. Not the object.
Thanks for following along. Can you relate? Have you ever had a moment — where the lights came on and you suddenly saw a self-defeating perspective or a flawed premise you believed to be true, maybe even good, and necessary for survival?
I didn’t have access to therapy at the time. Once the lights came on, I felt guilty of holding myself hostage. And that’s a cue for self-compassion: maybe in the form of a deep breath, a convo with my inner teen. Or both.
Growing up is tough, fast business. Growing older and wiser can be a gentle and nourishing art, both at fifteen or fifty-one.
Very powerful, the awareness of how we get to choose…not just be chosen. Thanks! Opened up my mind. And with kids in college, ugh…I feel so much pain for this generation of digital kids.