Month: February 2020

2 weeks ago, I got contact lenses. After almost a decade of glasses, it was finally time for me to see the world from a different perspective… ok fine, let’s be honest: getting contacts isn’t that big of a deal. But for me, a simple accessory has defined much of my self-perception and played a larger role in my life than I realized. 

For years, I avoided the idea of contacts. My parents urged me to consider it, friends encouraged me to stop being four-eyed, but something always held me back. I complained about the “super complicated” maintenance required for contacts, the extra costs, but what was truly worrying me, was my lack of self-acceptance. After spending years in glasses, I didn’t realize that I had been hiding behind them. Aside from physical insecurities and social concerns, I feared change. With so many drastic changes coming up, I guess it felt nice to have some constants in my life. 

But upon getting contacts, I discovered that the change I was trying to avoid, was actually the change I needed. One step out of my comfort zone opened up a world of risks that I was more willing to take. For example, if I was willing to get rid of glasses, then maybe I would try wearing something new (other than hoodies/sweatpants 😱😬)? Through this change, I began to live my life more in accordance with what I wanted, instead of what I’m used to.

 

And just when I (and probably you) thought I already had overanalyzed getting contacts enough, I read an eye-opening blog. To summarize, the blogger, Sydney Olivia, did a social experiment by wearing fake glasses at her college for a week, which led her to greater realizations about society and how we see each other. Reactions from her peers were mainly positive but overall neutral. In general, people seemed to support any stylistic choice that Sydney made, as it didn’t really affect them much. But this interested Sydney, as she felt like if she had done this in high school, she would’ve been judged or made fun of. The glasses of her experiment became a symbol for something greater, for the lenses that we view each other from. The most profound sentence in the entire blog for me was:

“We all wear glasses we don’t need.”

Olivia went into detail to explain how her own experiences in high school compared to college showed the difference in judgment once perspective is changed; she points out that “suddenly what was weird in high school is acceptable, smart, and “cool” in college.” She found that as we see more cultures and experience diversity, we’re more likely to be more understanding of others. 

But it’s important to note that by changing settings or moving to a more diverse place, people don’t automatically become kind, sympathetic, and compassionate. Olivia claims that this is a choice that we all have to make, a choice to be a more welcoming person. Just as we can choose to judge others or fear judgment, we can also make the choice to appreciate others and ourselves. 

This blog isn’t really about getting contacts, nor does it have anything to do with convincing people to get contacts. You can wear whatever eyewear you want (or none at all), but take the idea more symbolically, as a reminder to always have clear lenses and an open mind to look at the world from. 

 

I spent a sad amount of time thinking about what to write this blog about. It annoyed me that my life and opinions were seemingly not interesting enough to show my peers. But as I was sitting in my room, staring at a blank doc, I began to talk to myself and think out loud. Maybe louder than I realized, since minutes later, my dad comes in, confused, and asks who I’m talking to. At that moment, I realized my topic for this blog while my dad probably concluded that his daughter is going insane, which leads to my question: is it insane to talk to yourself?

I used to think that I was the only one who found themselves whispering thoughts to themselves while doing other tasks or having mini debates with themselves when making a decision, but this outer self-talk is actually very common. An article I was reading mentioned our “deep, transcendental conversations at 3am with nobody else but our own thoughts to answer back,” and I’ve never felt so exposed. 

 

So why is talking to yourself so common? And is it good for us? 

 

The origins of talking to ourselves come from our childhood when we are first learning to speak, and this self-directed speech is actually what helps us develop and learn new skills. But talking to yourself doesn’t mean that you haven’t developed out of your baby habits; it means that you’ve continued to use it to help you strengthen your cognitive abilities. I found a study that sums up the impact of self-talk pretty well: 20 people were given an object, like an apple or loaf of bread, to go find in a supermarket. In the first trial, the participants had to be silent, but in the second round, they repeated the name of the item out loud. The study found that the people were able to find the object with much more ease in the second round, as “saying things out loud sparks memory. It solidifies the end game and makes it tangible.”

But besides finding milk faster at the grocery store, talking to yourself has a multitude of other benefits. The emotional impact of self-talk is by far the most interesting aspect of the activity. As an article by NBC News put it, “What we say to ourselves, when we say [it], and how, has a tremendous impact on our self-esteem, beliefs about self-efficacy, and overall sense of worth.” I’ve found in my own life that the simple act of telling myself that I’m capable of achieving something or that everything is going to be okay, has had a large effect on my mindset. We often are quick to yell at ourselves or think negatively, but when it comes to motivating ourselves, these ideas may seem cliche or ineffective. But once you get past the idea of it feeling weird to talk to yourself, you begin to form a much healthier relationship with your own emotions, which leads to a greater sense of balance within you. 

I have to admit, the transition to a more positive self-view is much harder than it seems, but it makes sense: we’ve wired our brains to think a certain way for so many years, so breaking those habits take time. But to be able to speak your success into existence, and understand what you’re feeling and move past that is an ability that will carry you for the rest of your life. Even the simple change of not saying you’re screwed for the next math test or that you definitely won’t do well in a class, but instead putting your best effort in and being confident in your potential will already make a huge difference. 

 

We tend to rely on others for comfort; we text friends when we’re stressed, rant to family about our problems, but fail to acknowledge the person who understands us the most: ourselves. So the next time you have something on your mind and can’t seem to express it to those around you, try materializing those emotions and see where the conversation takes you.