Every morning before school, my mom would say to me: “Be kind, be courageous and don’t mumble.” Much of my college experience has been an attempt to live up to these three directives, particularly the final one: not to mumble.
I used to believe that to have a strong and clear voice, you had to pick a niche and stick with it. There is so much pressure to find your one “thing” when you come to college — your passion, your people, your reason, your place. Over the past four years, I learned just how futile it is to wait until you find the perfect thing. Instead, I picked every single fig and learned how to use my voice in countless different spaces on campus. One of those spaces came in the form of WAC, Occidental’s Ultimate Frisbee team.
In the middle of a recent, particularly intense Ultimate Frisbee game, sweaty, out of breath, and with very little grace, I put my hands up and shouted.
“I’m calling a Spirit Time Out,” I informed my teammates and the opposing team.
Ultimate Frisbee is based on a fundamental guiding principle, the Spirit of the Game, and a set of rules that expect players to call their own fouls on the field. The game had gotten too physical, and I took the “Spirit Time Out” to remind everyone that we were playing a game we all love and that we needed to play it safely. We all took a deep breath and resumed.
Four years prior, I am pretty sure an opposing team could have hit me in the face, and I would not have dared to make a call on the field. Calling my own fouls and encouraging my teammates to do the same is just another way of using my voice to show up for my team and myself one game at a time.
Another space where I found myself was in the Newcomb Media Suite.
For my first pitch at The Occidental, I sat all the way in the back, sinking into a mesh chair, hoping no one would look at me. I wrote stories mainly because I enjoyed asking questions and meeting my peers and professors. Slowly, but surely, my curiosity was guided and nurtured by my peers on the paper. They encouraged me to keep writing and eventually begin editing. The structured AP style of writing provided me with the space to be confident in my edits. I found my voice as a student reporter, as well as my own particular style. I loved it.
Recently, I stood up in front of The Occidental as Editor-in-Chief for the final time. Looking at all the writers, photographers, illustrators and members of our team I was content and proud. My leadership as a captain on WAC and Editor-in-Chief of The Occidental has been defined by listening to others and learning about their goals. It has been a pleasure helping others find their voice, no matter where they sit in the room.
We put too much pressure on finding the perfect things for ourselves. Instead, I encourage you to find the things that challenge you and push you to change. If you think you have found your niche, get up and keep looking. After all, the longest way round is the shortest way home.
When I was a kid, I mumbled because I wasn’t quite sure what space to occupy. I thought my voice had to be substantiated by knowing all the rules for Ultimate Frisbee or having the perfect idea for a story. Contrary to my mom’s advice, sometimes it is okay to mumble — to be unsure and to speak anyway. Knowing everything would seem to make things a lot easier, but perfection is not what got me to this moment.
It took time, but what did get me here is the following: I met the people I love dearly, I tried clubs I only went to once and I gave all of myself to the work that I was proud of, and to work that I am not so proud of. The Occidental and WAC are just two of the countless spaces I occupied at Occidental. Years working in the Writing Center, time spent reading for my CSLC classes, poor performances in intramural soccer games, oboe lessons, a short-lived job at a coffee shop, long runs, a semester abroad in Paris and all of the time in between shaped me. My voice is now hoarse from yelling on the Frisbee field and laughing in my house with my friends, and yes, I still mumble (sorry Mom) because I am still trying new things, even if I do them scared.
In the midst of a sweltering heat wave, on the first day of college, I wrote in my yellow composition notebook: “August 22nd, 2022: It is all incredibly overwhelming – the amount of people I am meeting and the amount of things I can spend my time doing. But I am also incredibly excited for what is coming… You know what, I am going to have a really great time and get everything I can out of these next four years, because why not?”
The profound and overwhelming sentiment is typical of a nervous and eager first-year student. Now, four years later, as I prepare to move to a new city, I am feeling similarly untethered in the face of possibilities. I can’t say for sure if I’ve lived up to my vague goal of getting everything out of college, but after hundreds of nights spent in this corner of Los Angeles, I have done my best, and I encourage you to do the same, because why not?
Contact Nora Youngelson at youngelson@oxy.edu
