“If someone asked you if you were happy, what would you say?”
The general consensus seems to be that the average college student—or just person in general—would not be able to give a hard yes. People are not objectively happy. Or, more specifically, happiness is too broad or abstract of a concept to apply uniformly to one’s life. Most people I ask seem to always answer the question with, “Yes, but…”
If someone asked me if I was happy, I would say yes.
It took me a really long time to get to a point where I could say yes without the "but," or even say yes at all. It took a lot of therapy and self–reflection. And here is what I figured out, for me: I am happy because I do what makes me happy and not what other people seem to think should make me happy.
That’s the takeaway that I want you to get from this week’s feature: not only that the nature of being sceney doesn’t make you any more or less happy in it of itself, but that if participating in the Scene is what makes you happy then that’s okay, and if abstaining from the Scene is what makes you happy, then that’s okay, too.
I think we spend a lot of time judging people at Penn, including ourselves, but the sooner you stop holding yourself accountable to other people’s ideas about you, the better off you will be.
