The More You Look, The Less Of It You Want To See

    

    Seeing yourself in the mirror can be the most horrifying experience if you have troubling insecurities. I don't mean a literal mirror but one that forces us to look within ourselves; we all carry tiny ones in our pockets anyway.

    "Sh*tty first drafts." That's what I heard, not once but, a few times last week when we begin our college essay workshops. But that got me thinking. Aren't our essays just demonstrating a little part of our "sh*ttiness" to colleges to show that we've grown in some profound way?

    It's innately unnatural to want to write about a difficult moment or experience that showed you needed to grow or change. We're all roughly 17 years old trying to make it in this world, and we've had enough of people telling us we're not good enough, certainly ourselves. Writing an essay about that? Forget it. 

    So why do we do it? Well, apart from the blatantly obvious fact that we have to, putting our story on paper is somewhat relieving. We’re all running from some demon – an insecurity, a person, a regret. In essence, ourselves. Between our glaring screens and our fingers, there is nothing that is preventing us from pouring our hearts out into these essays. 

    Think of the first draft you wrote. It was probably way over the word limit and just a garble of hopelessly spiraling thoughts. We may not realize it, but simply that first draft recognizes that we’re all hot messes, trying to navigate our lives, resistant to looking at ourselves honestly, and saying “yeah, I don’t have it figured out.”

    Say whatever you want – that college essays are supposed to glorify you, but the first, more or less, “sh*tty” draft is perhaps the most important one. It’s you recognizing something about yourself you didn’t even know you had. Recognizing that even the best part of yourself that you want to share with colleges isn’t all crystal clear. It’s “grey”, it’s “maybe”, it’s “I don’t know.” 

    It’s the pathway to you recognizing a self-truth larger than you had imagined. One you can’t find without that first draft. 

    Do you still have your first draft? Go read it. I promise you it’ll be as exposing as looking in a mirror.