Neon Orange Pants (and How I Learned to Be Myself)

In middle school, I was best friends with a girl named Alice, and I modeled myself after her as best I could, since she had the attentions of my crush (we'll call him Mike).

She was curly-haired, blond, thin, fashionable for a middle-schooler (she wore Abercrombie and Fitch), and funny and graceful and pretty and all that.  It seemed rational that I should ask myself before getting dressed each morning whether Alice would wear this outfit and, at school, whether Alice would laugh this way or whether Alice would make that joke.

I waited and waited, but Mike's attentions would fluctuate back and forth from Alice to others and routinely skip over me, so one day, I woke up and felt different.  I thought, “Mike already likes Alice -- why would he like me just because I'm similar?  Aren't I the lesser version?  Oh my god -- I'm pseudo-Alice!”

I opened my drawer and saw the neon orange pants I'd begged my mother for and then had shoved into the abyss.  I put the pants on.  I went to school.  I let my hyena-like laughter crash uninhibited into classrooms, and guess whose crush landed on me a week later?  Mike's!

Okay, I know it wasn't necessarily the orange pants, but this was a huge sign for me.  The world didn't need another Alice, it needed me, and it was thanking me by tilting in my favor.  I've got my quirks; sometimes I can charm the pants off of somebody, and sometimes I elicit narrowed eyes or just plain silence, but fine.  These are the sacred moments, when we stop thinking about others, forget our insecurities and fears, and, in essence, free ourselves to watch the world settle into its natural order -- in which you are truly what you are.

It's not easy, but there are some odd experiments I've tried that have helped me personally, and I'd love to share them with you.  They involve skewing what you might think is the truth about reality, like that we can't predict the future or that people make fun of other people, blah, blah, blah, but if your experiences go well, you'll have gained indispensable knowledge - like who you are, how you want to be, and that you should be that way always.

Don't Try These at Home! (They'll Work Better in the Real World)

By the way, it's important to dedicate these experiments completely to yourself, as it helps to justify them sometimes.  Tell yourself it's purely intellectual, it's only for a day, etc.  These are special exceptions to caring about consequences or thinking before doing, so technically, you are taking it slow, and during that time, you can go all out, whatever that may mean for you.

1)  Live among the brainless.  Say you must weave through a crowded cafeteria on crutches covered with Dora the Explorer stickers (which happens to be my current situation), or say you want to dance, but you don't know anybody at the party.  “What ever will they think of me?,” your brain says quietly -- the only thing keeping you from feeling totally comfortable crutching, or dancing.  Obviously, the only logical solution is to remember that whoever might be watching cannot think at all and, indeed, has no brain.  You are the only real person in the world.  The dance floor just got a lot more fun.

2) Tell your own fortune.  Before having an interaction with somebody important, envision it going really well.  Again, the experiment is to take this vision as fact -- what if the world were structured differently, where your positive vision was a prophecy bound to come true, no matter what you fumble at the interview or even BECAUSE you fumble?  Have fun with your reasoning.  Then see how the interview goes -- what did you say that you might not have said otherwise?  How did it feel?  Did you do well?  I bet you did.

3) TRY and get noticed.  Sometimes subtle changes won't cause your day to unfold differently or cause you to feel more alive, so the third experiment is to be a caricature of yourself.  If you're loud, be louder.  If you want to push yourself to participate during class, answer what others may consider way too many questions.  Let your brain whir.  Am I annoying people by participating this much?!  It doesn't matter!  They don't exist.

Genuinely disregarding the thoughts of others can lead to a significantly more fulfilling life.  If you are naturally shy and you decide that other people have no thoughts during that awkward group chat, guess what?  Your insecurities about being shy will dissolve away, and maybe this will work for your insecurities one by one. 

And remember, as corny as it is, our unique traits make us special - so true, it's almost redundant.

This is a post by interning writer, Danielle ("Dani") Ferrara, a student at Marist College.