Yael H.
Photography by Ashley Kung
If you’re reading this, know that you matter.
Why do you matter? Because you’re you. The mere fact of your existence matters. You don’t need to be good at anything, you don’t need to do anything. The most important part of you is that you are currently being you. Just existing. We can’t allow our sense of self-worth to come from other people. Besides, there’s really no coherent definition of what makes a person matter.
The letter I want to write to you is the one that tells you that because the thing that makes you matter is simply your existence, it is therefore not something you can mess up or lose or something that could possibly be taken away from you. You will always matter.
What next? What do you do with your value? What do you do when you feel like the whole world is looking at you and you just can’t measure up? Or what do you do when it feels like no-one is looking at you?
I can only speak to my struggles. Sometimes I can’t help but think about how everything is going to go wrong and I'm not going to match my potential even though I gave it my all. My life is good. I have all the tools I need to succeed. So I need to be succeeding, and if I’m not succeeding I’m failing, and if I’m failing I’m a failure, and– and that’s how I start to spiral.
When I start spiraling I try to imagine my worst case scenario. I talk myself through the worst case scenario to logically understand that I would still be okay. Like, I’d still be okay. Like if an asteroid came hurtling to Earth tomorrow I probably wouldn’t know about it and then we’d all be gone so it wouldn’t matter. That’s a dramatic example. A more realistic example is that if I fail the midterm I’m studying for right now and consequently fail the class. It’s okay. The worst case scenario is I’d have to take it again. And that would suck. But I would be okay.
We have a good university community here. I think one of its strengths is that it’s giant, and if you don’t find your place immediately that doesn’t mean your place doesn’t exist. This can be a double edged sword, though, because it also means there’s a million ways for you to go and a million people to get lost in. But I have learned to take strength from both these ideas: first, our choices are endless, we’re bound to make the right one eventually, and second, there are so many people your potential failure may not be as significant as you think. And in the end, any failure you go through really won’t intrinsically destroy everything– your value doesn’t come from whatever success you tried to accomplish at that exact moment. Our value comes from existing. You and I are naturally valuable. If the worst case scenario still leaves us alive and well, we’re okay.
All you have to do is keep existing because it is your existence that matters. That goes on the top of the to-do list. Everything else comes afterwards, and as long as you’ve got the first item checked off, there’s plenty of time left to do everything else. You’re okay now. You’re going to keep being okay. If you’re reading this, know that you matter.
Yael H., University of Florida
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