Two Lessons and a Life: Quotes that Have Changed My Mindset
Lauren ParkStudent Contributor, University of California - Los Angeles
This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UCLA chapter and does not reflect the views of Her Campus.
Our childhood stories oversimplified universal truths. Growing up, we always read about the dichotomy between the good guy and the bad guy. But as we age, we start to characterize and trade these labels for protagonists and antagonists instead. The main distinction? These new categories don’t condense each character in a box of morality. What media often labels as being a “morally gray character” is a character that isn’t defined by their good or bad actions. Because at the end of the day, the most human and natural thing of all is to be both.
Entering my twenties, I feel both naive and too aware of the world. I am essentially a two-year-old adult, waddling my way through life and its experiences. But I’ve also spent two decades attempting to find pieces of myself that fit and feel right. I once read that a woman’s twenties are really about reuniting with the inner child who knew exactly who she was before the world told her who to be. If that’s the case, I think these are the pieces of advice that are helping me navigate back toward her.
“People can only understand others at the depth they can understand themselves.”
To be loved is to be?
As a species that yearns for connection and acceptance, love languages have always evolved over time. With different definitions and expressions, it is inevitable for there to be mismatches and lessons. Take, for example, the debate about what it means to be loved. Is it to be known? Seen? Understood? Does a word exist to encapsulate arguably the most important aspect of our existence?
For myself at least, I have learned that I have made the mistake of taking a lack of understanding as a lack of effort. Now, I view emotional intelligence and capacity the same way I view the ocean.
Every person has their comfort level of understanding – a certain depth that they are most acclimated in. Humans aren’t necessarily defined solely on their experiences, but it certainly shapes their mindset and how they are wired. Therefore, differing life circumstances, trauma, familial situations, personal experiences, all the way down to DNA, impacts their core abilities to understand others.
For example, “surface level” conversations may not be so much of a choice for them as it may be for others. For others, surface level might be their safety zone. In contrast, for a person who lives in the depths, the surface might not feel enough – even lonely or cold. But also, when you try to pull a surface-level person down to the depths, in attempts to be understood, seen, or heard, they might feel like they’re drowning. Neither of these levels are better, worse, good, or bad to the other. It is just a mismatch of abilities that often results in one forcing themselves to try to change to suit the other. And if that fundamental change were to happen, that could be the most unnatural thing a person can attempt to do for another.
People can only meet you as deep as they’ve met themselves. It is not your burden to beg to seen at the level of depth you swim in. Just like how it is not another person’s burden to have to swim down or up to meet you there. Maybe this is why we click with some and don’t with others.
This isn’t to say that the goal is to find people that are at your depth 100% of the time. If anything, to do so would only limit your scope, perception, and connections. Instead, maybe it’s to find the people who can meet you there occasionally. To not only accept, but to appreciate those who can only wave up or down.
At least that is what I like and choose to believe. But then again, you are also reading a 20-year-old’s thoughts.
After a relationship, especially a significant one, it’s more often than not that people try to choose a bad guy and a good guy. The victim and the perpetrator. In some cases, it is the truth. In other cases, it is for the sake of those involved. It is easier to grieve someone’s presence physically and emotionally when you villainize them in your head. With this common narrative, some choose to characterize the person who lost as the person who gave it their all. The one who loved hard.
Vulnerability has almost become something to be embarrassed by. To be labeled a “simp” or the “puppy” has gained an essence of being the one who got laughed at instead of the last laugh.
I’ve learned it’s quite the contrary.
It is never a waste to love someone, for the person who loves, always wins. You loved someone who didn’t love you back? If you loved someone more, how is that embarrassing? To know who and what you want, to have the courage to act on it, and to possess the strength to move on when you should. What a privilege it is, to not only love, but own a heart that knows what it wants.
To yearn is not a weakness, but a testament to your own depth.
Lauren is a third-year International Development Studies major from Carlsbad, California. She loves listening to music/podcasts, thrifting, reading, crafting, and is always open for a side quest. Additionally, Lauren frequently tries new coffee shops and enjoys exploring flea markets.
