What I Learned In College Is...

With only a few more weeks left in my senior year, a lot is happening all at once for me. Trying to complete like five projects for four classes all happening at the same time. Trying to remember to fill out this form and double-check that due date. Also trying to remember to allocate time to eat, take care of myself, and maintain conversations too. It’s a lot. I’ve always thought that the spring semesters felt more chaotic than the fall semesters, and now adding into the mix being forced to actually, really think about my future and what I’m going to do once I’m out of this 16-year-old relationship with a pandemic on the side; it’s an understatement to say I am stressed.

But between all this stress and infinite-scrolling because I got too stressed, I learned probably the most important lesson I’ve learned so far in my life, and I think it’s an important lesson for everyone, maybe for creatives especially, to learn.

Since coming to this school, maybe also before here too, I’ve regularly had to run projects by other people to get their approval. I’ve had to plead and finesse my way into getting some of them to truly understand the project and why it matters. And as it goes, I’ve gotten some projects approved, but I’ve also gotten so many projects rejected which forced me to move on from what I wanted to do and find something else that would work.

The same thing happened this semester too. I had a project that I believed in and was excited for, get rejected. And it happened again. And again. And it happened six times in less than 72 hours. And my confidence was shot down completely.

I didn’t have confidence in myself that I could even have a good idea for a project, let alone a project I could actually do considering the pandemic and my limited transportation. I didn’t think I was meant for this field at all. I saw all of my classmates find project subjects quickly, and even those that had a hard time found their subjects with a little more time. But I kept running into one problem after the next and having to pivot and keep moving to find something, and it took a lot out of me. At some point, I stopped. I couldn’t even think about putting in the effort to find a project subject without crying because I couldn’t understand why this had to be so much harder for me than everyone else. And I’ve seen this same thing happen semester after semester, always to me. I was so mad at everything to do with journalism and photojournalism. I felt like I had put in so much time and effort and passion into a field that doesn’t want to see me succeed, and I just didn’t want to do this anymore.

Don’t get me wrong. I still love photography and I still deeply care for journalism, but this is not a love letter to either of them, especially considering how I’ve scarred and emotionally abused by both of them. This is a love letter to myself.

I have slowly built my confidence back up when it comes to finding a project subject and coming up with good ideas in general. I recognize that my ideas have always been good -they’ve sometimes been a little rocky and not fully hatched, but nevertheless, my ideas have always been good. But what I’ve learned is that so long as I can see my vision and I believe in it, then I can do anything.

I have spent so much of my time looking for someone to approve my vision, for someone to see what I see and to believe in it the way I do when it’s not like that. Not everyone is going to see what I see. They’re not going to get why it matters, why it’s important, why I believe in it so hard. There will be people that just don’t care like I do. And it’s not my job to beg them to care or believe in it either. I have come to recognize that not everyone -and definitely not every person that calls themselves a creative, will have a similar vision to me. And I don’t need them to cosign the projects I want to do.

I don’t need someone who doesn’t believe in my project, or doesn’t see the vision for my project, or doesn’t care about my project, or can’t see why my project matters, to approve it for me. To tell that I’m doing good on their terms. I only need my approval, my vision, my care, to move forward with a project. And this isn’t say that I will no longer be taking critiques, I will. I can recognize that I’m not perfect and there are ways a project can be improved, but I will no longer be basing my worth as a storyteller, as a photojournalist, as a creative, on anyone other than myself.

I am my biggest cheerleader, I always will be. So long as I believe in myself there’s not a thing I can’t do and a story I can’t tell. I’ve approved myself, I always will.