If I’m being completely honest, my college transition was nothing short of rocky. I’ll be short and frank: I was good at high school.
I worked extremely hard to excel academically - anything less than an A was basically an F. I had, what seemed like, a lot of friends. I mean, they were always there for me, I was never bored on the weekends, and there was always someone in the hall willing to talk to me. I was also the captain of three varsity sports teams. What more could an 18-year-old girl ask for? For me, the answer was obvious - I wanted a comparable, if not better, college experience. I wanted to walk away from my four years of college saying, “That was ten times better than high school. I’m good at this school thing, this friend thing, this job thing.” I thought I would come into the University of Michigan and live the same life as I did in high school. I don’t think I could have ever been more wrong. I threw everything into my academics during the first semester of my freshman year. That’s how it started in high school. I realized I was great at school, gave it 110%, then used that drive to excel in other parts of life. Overachiever, Type A, Perfectionist: those words became synonymous with the name Casey. That’s how it was in high school. I worked obscenely hard, and I got the results I wanted. Or, needed. Fast forward to mid-semester, and I realized that I didn’t do anything but study, always blaming my stress and unhappiness on school. I think this was the moment when I finally came to the realization that success doesn’t exactly create happiness. For me, success was a way to hide the fact that failure would devastate me. It might have been my first B or the moment I realized I didn’t have a plethora of friends to catch me when I fell that I realized the adult world was completely different than my high school “bubble” (as I now refer to it). Maybe it was that moment when I learned that I can’t be the best at everything… I mean, we’re at the University of Michigan. Everyone here is impressive, everyone here is smart, and everyone here is driven. It’s impossible to come out on top in every aspect of life... Yet, I still tried. I kept pushing myself academically, but once I realized how unhappy I actually was, I decided to try and excel at another aspect of my life. I joined a sorority, hoping to make as many friends as possible. If I wasn't happy succeeding academically, maybe I’d be happy excelling in a social setting. It helped, but it still didn’t get me to where I needed to be mentally. I am an overachiever, and I think this stems from a competitive drive that was instilled in me at a young age. I need to do everything, and I need to do it well. And, honestly, it’s failing that scares me the most. I think if I were to fail, I would hate everything about myself, about my abilities, about my expectations. It’s not healthy, but it’s who I am. Since killer academics and a seemingly good social life - I was making friends, and even found a few that stuck around - weren’t cutting it freshman year, what did I decide to do? I joined more clubs than I should have signed up for and decided to take on a job. You would think I would have burned out, but I ended up finishing that first semester like any overachiever would have liked. Come the end of second semester, and my overachieving days were over. Perfect academics were no longer correlated with the name Casey Lyons, and my friends texted me almost every other day asking what I was up to because they were able to count on one hand how many times I went out over the semester. Who was this? Why was this happening? I really didn’t know what was going on, this type of performance and attitude wasn’t in my nature. It wasn’t me. Frankly, I didn’t know who it was. Luckily, my undying desire to succeed allowed me to still secure a place in the business school, but throughout my first semester as a BBA student, I was only reminded time and time again that I can’t always be the best when I’m competing against the best. I knew this was true. “You can’t always be the best.” Yet, my inner drive wouldn’t allow me to accept it as fact. **insert cliché bit about finding myself with the Minor in Writing** I don’t want to stress the details, but I do want to note that this was an integral part of my experience in discovering why I write. Flashback to my aforementioned tidbit on always having to be the best, always having to succeed. My application to the Minor in Writing didn’t suddenly give me this incredible insight and inspiring revelation into who Casey Lyons is as a writer, but it did get me thinking. Why did I apply to a program solely focused on the art of written communication? Was it something I thought I was the best at? Absolutely not. But, if I wasn’t the best at it, why did I pursue it? Isn’t my whole mentality: if you can’t be the best, it’s not worth it? I think that’s why I pursued the minor, and more collectively, I think that’s why I write. I have always been good at writing. Not the best, but good. I took AP English in high school, and my friends would always come to me to edit their pieces. I four-pointed my first writing course in college, and I write for an online magazine. Yet, I peer-edit for the MiW gateway course, and I realize that I won’t ever be able to write in the same fashion as some of my peers. I’m good at it, but I’m not the best. I think that’s why I write. “I’m good at it, but I’m not the best.” This one statement that seems to go against every fiber of my being as an overachiever doesn’t seem to bother me when it comes to writing. When it comes to writing, being good in my own nature is good enough for me. I don’t mind not being the best when I know that writing is about as subjective, developing, and personal as it gets. It almost sounds corny, but it stops short of that when I realize that writing is something I don’t mind not being the best at because it is uniquely me. Every other facet in which I strive to achieve is something that is comparable by nature. GPAs, number of friends, summer internships, 5k times: all of these are easy to measure against one another. But, no matter how much one tries, writing is inherently impossible to compare between two individuals. No matter how hard I try, I will never be able to write a piece like Sanika or Hudson. Similarly, I cannot compare John Green to George Orwell - the authors and their works are inherently different. Finally… I don’t have to prove myself. Writing allows me to immerse myself in something that doesn’t call for an immediate comparison to someone else because it’s naturally impossible for this comparison to work. It doesn’t make sense for me to compare myself to others, so I naturally focus solely on my own work, what I can create, what I can do. This explanation of why I write is similar to why I originally played sports. I didn’t pick up a basketball at the age of six with the mindset “I want to win,” but rather one of “I want to play.” Unfortunately, this love for the game was ultimately lost when my skills were noticed: I was good, and I could be the best. Sadly, this competitive nature became the visible reason as to why I played the game. With writing, however, the sense of “being the best,” disappears because there’s no comparative ability. Thank goodness. I lost that drive to play. I don’t want to lose that drive to write. This inability to compare allows me to explore writing as a passion and technique to its furthest extent. I am never halted by the inevitable thought of “I’m not the best” because that thought never crosses my mind. I have the opportunity to continue- an opportunity I haven’t had in many areas of my life. So, to explicitly answer the question “Why do you write?” I would point to the fact that writing is something that I will never give up on. It is something that I will continue to pursue because my daunting ego doesn’t get in the way of it. Writing allows me to further myself in so many other ways, as well: communicatively, personally, and professionally. Writing challenges, me, and a challenge is something for which an overachiever always looks. A challenge? You all know I’m up for that. |