The plunge

After spending a semester of giving amazing advice to the most hopeless and desperate freaks around, your guardian devil is need of an emergency vacation ASAP because your problems and issues and feelings are starting to affect me personally. I’d like to believe that my last 14 pieces effectively dealt with the mess you call your lives, but truth be told I guess there are larger, deep-seated personal issues at hand that I’m not capable of handling without being compensated more, or going crazy. So, I’m done. Despite a best effort, your guardian devil is handing control of your feeble minds back to those who own it—the University. I want to believe that everything I wrote was stellar, but it probably wasn’t. If there was something I wrote that was truly awful, it would be easier to blame you all, The Chronicle or something tangible—but what good would that do?

Being Monday Monday was something I had always thought about doing. I was encouraged by several close friends to apply for the position and was lucky enough to receive it, though I couldn’t exactly tell you why. I don’t consider myself to be any funnier or more insightful than my classmates, but like maybe I’m blessed, so whatever. Regardless, even if this semester’s series hasn’t been the faux-enlightening experience I intended it to be for my audience, it was enlightening for me, especially as my time at Duke is coming to a close.

Here’s the truth. Under the self-involved, callous and fake veneer of your guardian devil, there have been times throughout my time at Duke when I have been absolutely miserable, completely frustrated and inconsolably angry. There have been times, more often than I’d like, when I’ve struggled academically, been utterly disappointed and felt that no one has had any faith in me. And there have been times when I’ve been unhappy socially and personally or times when I’ve wished I was someone else or somewhere else because I wasn’t good enough. And, I’ll go so far as to bet that everyone here has, to some extent, felt the same way. Yet, you and I both know that it’s so much easier to hide everything under a false smile, a couple of “I’m fine”s and a copious amount of mental diversion.

Your guardian devil’s complete defiance of normalcy in experiences, goals, emotional maturity or care was meant to expose the commonality of the Duke experience—no, not something like DukeEngage or Econ 101, but the real personal subtleties. I’m guilty of ignoring this commonality—the commonality that underneath how we appear, we all feel happiness and sadness, and that we are all battling our own demons, however small or large they might be. I’m not trying to make this piece something out of Mean Girls, but if there’s one thing I’ve realized throughout my time in college, it’s this—you’ll never know what’s going on under the surface, if you don’t bother to take the plunge.

In light of what I’ve learned as Monday Monday and throughout my Duke career, I do have one last piece of advice—be accountable. Be accountable by owning up to your mistakes and learning from them. Be accountable by holding yourself to a higher standard, before you hold anyone else to it. Be accountable by creating a standard that you want to reach, not one defined by others. Be accountable by being authentic and real. Be accountable by being comfortable, and be comfortable by not hiding who you are or how you feel, because the totality of your personhood—your thoughts, feelings, hopes, and desires—is just as important as everyone else’s. Be accountable to others by being yourself. I’ve come to believe that we are all perfect because we are all unique and that by being accountable, we can come a little closer to finding ourselves.

Writing Monday Monday columns this semester has been a privilege, as I’ve been given a voice. In this way, be accountable to yourself and to others because you have a unique voice, even if real life isn’t some populist blog like Humans of New York. As a column, Monday Monday is about anonymity. And although I loved this semester, it’s a great relief to be free from writing in the shadows, to bear a little bit while writing as myself. I’m still learning to take my own advice and truly be myself—I realize that I’m a work in progress. Despite the challenges of this semester and ones prior, I know I’ve gotten a little closer to being more accountable, to being me. Your guardian devil is gone, but I hope that you all are able to do what he couldn’t—be yourself.

Good luck on all of your final exams, papers, presentations, projects, marathons, personal relationships, sleep schedules, self-control etc. and have a great winter break! I need a vacation.

Without disdain,