Writing
By Kayla Mitchell | IG: @kayyymitchell
As athletes we’re constantly told to run. Not only are we told we have to run, but we can never be slower than yesterday. Taking a step back or achieving a slower time is seen as unprecedented; it doesn’t meet your expectation as an athlete to be worse than you were yesterday. You are shameful or undedicated if you don’t consistently improve on your skills. You can’t slow down, you can’t take a break; you must keep going. In fact, in a moment where you might feel an inclination to run slower, you are reprimanded for running faster.
The obvious problem seen here is that no one can run forever and you cannot always run faster. It is inevitable that with simple human nature that mistakes will happen and bad days exist. Perfection isn’t real, but the question now becomes what happens when something that doesn’t exist is the expectation and norm to follow?
Your thoughts begin to distort.
A slower run than yesterday means that you didn’t try hard enough.
A bad practice means that you need to train harder and more often.
A bad game means that you need to be more dedicated; commit to your diet, your practice regime, and watch more film.
Suddenly you are caught at a crossroad between fact and fiction. If these thoughts apply to one major aspect of your life, why wouldn’t they apply to others? Why wouldn’t a bad test grade equate to not studying long or hard enough? Why would an Instagram picture on the beach getting less likes from last summer mean that your body looks worse? Why wouldn’t it mean that if you didn’t like your body equate to restriction? Why wouldn’t feeling like a failure equate to being a failure?
Society places its skewed views of what we should be doing on us everyday and we choose to listen even though its portrayal changes yearly, monthly, and weekly. What is trending one day is canceled the next, the ideal body type is dramatically different from one year to the next, standardized tests have become optional instead of mandatory, yet we choose to meet and listen to these simplistic benchmarks that solidify our black and white thinking.
Black and white thinking although seeming simplistic, is abstractly distorted.
There are two things we are constantly surrounded by throughout our lives:
The expectation to succeed in whatever we do and food.
Our parents begin having these expectations for us from a young age. Parents desire their kids to be the best versions of themselves that they could be, through reading every help and advice book/article they could, they expect us to walk and talk by a certain age and follow a specific timeline of the milestones we should accomplish by a certain point in development. This further transitions into academia, extracurricular activities, and social aspects; expectations to not only pass, but get 100% 's at the top of our paper. The idea that we need to be an active participant in school activities, but also hold a leadership position. The expectation to play a sport, but to also get the fastest timed run or score the game winning goals. The expectation to have a group of friends, but also have the largest group of friends. Beliefs and conjectures of what defines success surround us and the societal pressure is an insurmountable amount that manifests into all aspects of life.
Food is a necessary part of life. Without food, there is simply no existence. It is a simple fact that we need to consume and digest food in order to complete our simple daily activities and tasks to the fullest extent we could. We are exposed to milk and baby food in the beginning phases of our life, but at some point a door opens leading us to the expensive and diverse world of different textures, flavors, cuisines, and meals. Food is necessary, but also a large part of our social interaction. Large family dinners, pizza/pasta parties with sports teams, sharing a slice of birthday cake, getting coffee with a friend, eating oranges at halftime, and going to the local diner after homecoming. In order to have life, we need to have food.
The media defines a successful person as someone in the ideal body, someone that embodies a healthy lifestyle, and someone that succeeds in the things that they partake in. Health looks like someone in a societally small body, someone who promotes eating their daily serving of vegetables and fruits, and someone who portrays themself wearing a smile. What happens to a person who doesn’t meet this criteria? Food intake turns from moderation to restriction, exercise transitions from a healthy hobby to a dangerous addiction, the body goes from physically healthy to emotionally raw and numb, and success=size. In order to meet these expectations the one thing that fuels us to live and have life we lose sight of.
A smile behind a screen is really a shell of a human.
“I’m a student”
“I’m an athlete”
“I’m a club president.”
We spend our whole lives trying to label ourselves by partaking in certain daily tasks or activities that allow us to identify as a certain someone. Whether it be partaking in something from a young age, dressing to fit that mold, we find comfort in partaking in things that align with the label we have given ourselves because it makes us feel more in tune with ourselves and our identity. However, when stripping back all of the activities you participate in, clothes you wear, dialect you use, you are left with the most raw and pure version of yourself. This begs the question, of who am I really?
Who am I without all of the things I have convinced myself I have valued through matching a specific word to label myself? Without playing a sport, wearing athletic clothes, taking my hair down and wiping the sweat off my forehead, if I am not just “an athlete”, then who am I? Without having the validation of good grades, taking difficult classes, and kissing up to my professors, if I am not just “a student”, then who am I? When peeling back the activities planned, speakers organized, and conversations about a specific club, if I am not just “a club president”, than who am I?
Who am I truly when all of the things I love to do are not present in my life? Who am I when activity is outweighed by something less literal and a more metaphorical idea of who I should be? Who am I without doing something to fit society's molds and standards? Who am I without feeling like I need to label myself as something that doesn’t encapsulate who I truly am? Without having a schedule that we plan ourselves filled with tasks and activities that we choose because they meet our standards, what are our true values that aren’t connected to doing or completing something? Who am I at my core, all layers peeled back?
I am a person that….
LOVES her family
WANTS TO make a difference
HAS THE GOAL of showing up for herself
USED TO BE AFRAID OF admitting i have an ed
IS AFRAID OF failure
IS DRIVEN BY numbers
IS INSPIRED BY my peers efforts in php
IS PROUD OF the amount that I try
WHO NOTICES when other people's tendencies change
HAS A HABIT OF isolating
IS HAPPIEST WHEN i'm fully present
IS DISAPPOINTED WHEN others pity me
WISHES I COULD understand that perfection isn’t attainable
BELIEVES IN freedom of choice
OFFERS autonomy TO THE WORLD/THOSE AROUND ME
WILL ONE DAY be recognized by others as successful
