(prompt from here)
Write about something you now know that you wish you knew earlier in life. How could this knowledge have helped you?
If I could go back and have a conversation with College Me (all of six to three years ago), I think I would tell her to stop being such a self-righteous idiot. High School Me was a social moron (weren't we all?) and often quite mean, but the self-righteousness didn't start sticking its nose in the air until I went to a religious college. Don't get me wrong--my college was pretty awesome--but what happened for me when I was immersed in a religious environment was that I forgot how to not be a jerk about what other people believe and think. I thought that if someone self-identified as Mormon, like me, that I was then at liberty to tut-tut over skirt lengths and choice of movies and church attendance and marriage partners and wow, College Me, you were seriously embarrassing. College Me's preoccupation with other people's business often prevented her from understanding and appreciating those people for who they were, instead of who SHE expected them to be, and that was a very poor life choice. I wish I had learned earlier that I'm severely unqualified to pass judgment on other people's lives or beliefs, even if we go to church together. Especially if we go to church together. Basically, somebody needed to give College Me a good kick in the knee-length skirt.
(This self-revelation isn't going to keep me from passing cruel, cold judgment when my students use the wrong form of "your" in a paper, though. I'm not that generous!)
Write about something you now know that you wish you knew earlier in life. How could this knowledge have helped you?
If I could go back and have a conversation with College Me (all of six to three years ago), I think I would tell her to stop being such a self-righteous idiot. High School Me was a social moron (weren't we all?) and often quite mean, but the self-righteousness didn't start sticking its nose in the air until I went to a religious college. Don't get me wrong--my college was pretty awesome--but what happened for me when I was immersed in a religious environment was that I forgot how to not be a jerk about what other people believe and think. I thought that if someone self-identified as Mormon, like me, that I was then at liberty to tut-tut over skirt lengths and choice of movies and church attendance and marriage partners and wow, College Me, you were seriously embarrassing. College Me's preoccupation with other people's business often prevented her from understanding and appreciating those people for who they were, instead of who SHE expected them to be, and that was a very poor life choice. I wish I had learned earlier that I'm severely unqualified to pass judgment on other people's lives or beliefs, even if we go to church together. Especially if we go to church together. Basically, somebody needed to give College Me a good kick in the knee-length skirt.
(This self-revelation isn't going to keep me from passing cruel, cold judgment when my students use the wrong form of "your" in a paper, though. I'm not that generous!)
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