Dear You,
I want to do something different this week — I want to talk to you. Though I don’t have the courage to look you in the eye and tell you all these beautiful things, I wanted to at least tell you like this, through a letter. But the real reason I couldn’t ask you this eye-to-eye is because you’ll never talk to me about it. Instead, you do a brilliant job putting on that fake smile every day, pretending like life is all sunshine and rainbows when I can see from the corner of your eyelid the facade: the happiness that turns off when that dorm room shuts, the jollyness that fades as overthinking consumes every situation with crippling anxiety, and the enthusiasm that simply wants some time off. I get it. I really do.
Because you, me, and everyone here are like the ducks that float on Rabbit Pond, seemingly graciously trodding through water, while it suffers below the surface, waddling its webbed feet at an incredible pace. And yet we take a superficial look at all the other ducks in the pond, observing everyone’s calm and collected eyes and faces as they chivalrously make their way through the water, strike up conversations, and have fun. The waves keep hitting you: in-class writings, math exams, lab reports, analytical essays. And when the water splashes against your eyes, you suddenly feel like you’re all alone in this terrifying ocean. At a certain point, as mud builds up in your eyes and the waves keep on crushing you, you fully buy into the idea that it’s just you that’s paddling for your life to keep up. It’s not. Everyone feels the same way — tired, overworked, burnt out — but they act like they’re perfectly fine on the outside. And we’ve tricked you, just like you tricked yourself.
It’s called the Stanford Duck Syndrome, “the idea that students are struggling to survive the pressures of a competitive environment while presenting the image of a relaxed student, like a calm duck gliding across a fountain.” Though Stanford coined the term, the concept applies to all competitive academic environments, just like the one we’re in right now. Happiness in the midst of so much stress is frankly an unrealistic expectation that we set for ourselves, blinded by the daunting waves. You try to be that “good friend,” that “good teammate,” that “good student,” that “good roommate,” and that “perfect human” that you forget the normality of stress and anxiety in your life that comes with fulfilling these roles. You aren’t expected to juggle everything while riding the unicycle like a circus performer, dodging loose lions and flying knives. But the more you seem to smile and hang on, the more the crowd seems to roar. You start doing it for the cheer, and forget that you’re doing it for yourself. Every day, you fear that one wrong move will get you chewed up by the hungry lions or hit by the piercing knives. You still waddle like every other duck, just trying to get by.
So I ask that you talk to me. Because I don’t want to see you crying alone, eyes red from exhaustion, crashing under the pressure and unrealistic quotas you were never supposed to meet. I couldn’t call myself a friend if I weren’t there to pat you on the back and show you my waddles that are also struggling to keep up, because sometimes all it takes is to show you that I’m in the same boat as you, dodging the same lions and avoiding the same knives. And I wish that you could hear my plea over the crowd. My plea is simply to hug you and tell you to stop living for the noise. Everyone around you would do the same. I can’t force you to talk, but when you’re ready, everyone will be there, ready to listen.
You’re not alone in this pond. Call a friend at your lowest. Run to them when you think you are drowning alone. Walk with them when you need a shoulder to lean on. But not just them. Everyone around you, alongside me, is willing to do the same. But this is also about not being alone inside yourself. Grow the ability to reach out and get a shoulder to cry on, because talking about it sometimes helps the most. Shatter the unrealistic expectations of the “perfect student” and embrace the struggle. Know that it’s not just you, and be realistic with your goals. Take it one step at a time. And every road you take, I’ll be there for you. Every lion you dodge and every knife you avoid, I’ll be there for you. Every time you want to cry, vent, or talk, we’ll be there with you.
Because we all get it. We really do.
From,
Yourself, the part of you that doesn’t want to be a duck
