Shine
There’s this quote I love by Marianne Williamson:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
It was the theme behind a week-long leadership conference I attended in Chicago during the summer of 2011 (read: the most beautiful experience of my life). During that week, we upheld those words like they were our national anthem. Falling out of that habit after the week was over was like falling out of love with someone I thought I was going to marry – it felt like a betrayal to myself, the idea, and anyone who was in any way invested in it.
Falling out of it was falling back into mediocrity. It was a return to a world where I was afraid to sit in the front row of class in order to achieve high marks, where I felt guilty for winning a writing contest my classmates had also entered, where I devalued each one of my achievements simply because I had achieved them – even though they would have impressed me had they been someone else’s.
This isn’t the introduction to some inspirational story about overcoming my discomfort with being above average. That’s because that world I just described is the world I’m living in now. It’s so tragically true that I felt uncomfortable even typing the words “above average,” because I don’t want my readers to think I believe that they describe me.
Which is why I’m sharing this quote with you. I want each of us to stop shrinking, to stop playing small. I believe that in doing so, we are each holding our world back from creating miracles everyday. We’re doing a true disservice. I think if we let our lights shine the way Williamson says we ought to, the world ‘miracle’ would cease to even exist, because the things we consider to be miracles now would become common. It’s my time to stop being afraid, and I want so badly for you to make it yours as well.
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I think this notion is an interesting one. I’ve always been good at math and science. I was born into it, and I have always been ahead of most of my class mates since as far back as I can remember. Even in first grade, I was teaching some kid how to add. As I got older, the gap widened, and by senior year, only five other people were still approximately at the same level as I was when it came to calculus and physics. I was afraid people in my class would alienate me because of my ability, so I constantly tried to downplay my abilities, but as the year went on it got worse. Eventually the five of us had pretty much segregated ourselves outside of the rest of the AP and Honors students. Coming here I was hoping for some change, and I have seen myself fall somewhat down from essentially extremely above average to I dunno highly above I guess. But there are still times when I fear that if I perform at my maximum potential, I will be ostracized by my peers. For example, I was in a physics lab today where I was probably the only freshman, surrounded by sophomores and juniors. I wanted so desperately to just take over the data crunching because I knew i could get it done so much faster than the sophomore that was doing it. I didn’t though. I believe the notion you presented is interesting, but I don’t regret my choice today.
Wow, this was so fun to read because it was philosophical but easy to follow. Your writing really impressed me, and I can totally relate to what you’re talking about. I can honestly say that I’ve lied about test grades or agreed with friends that a test was difficult when really, I found it to be easy. I never really thought of that as being afraid of my own abilities; it was just easier not to feel like I was making others feel bad, or being cocky. But why shouldn’t I be proud of getting an A? Maybe I studied more, or tried harder. I wish we could start lifting each other up instead of pulling each other down. If we strive to get on higher levels to match smart, passionate people rather than sinking ourselves down to the levels of others, maybe more people would try harder and we could live in a more enlightened society.