I cannot remember a time in my childhood and early adulthood when I did not care about whether or not people liked me. I spent the first nineteen years of my life trying to express myself and my opinions without giving cause for people to feel animosity toward me. There are definitely many people whose opinions I truly don’t care about, and this is all not to say that I don’t hold to my convictions and (often) share my opinions, but I’ve gotten really good at tactfully and carefully communicating with all sorts of people. It’s a useful skill, and I’m happy I have it, but when I got to Conn, I realized it was also holding me back. A lot.
There will always be people who don’t like you, no matter how radically you empathize or how much assertiveness you hold back. When I first became a News section editor for the Voice, I was terrified to write anything that might rock the boat. The most substantial news piece I produced that semester was an in-depth interview with then-Chair of Student Activities Council Jeff Celniker ‘17 about the many exciting facets of that year’s Floralia. I was afraid to put myself out there and ask questions that people might not like, or to present an issue that many people felt strongly about. Then, I lost the SGA election for Vice President (after having served all year as Chair of Academic Affairs), and while I was disappointed, I was also very relieved. Holding a position on student government had been rewarding in many ways, but it had also been stifling. I felt that I was too focused on remaining likeable to most people to be able to make the impact I really wanted to make.
Most likely, with any other EIC, I would have continued to avoid difficult subjects in my News articles, despite my newfound liberation from Conn’s bureaucracy. Maia is a goddamn force, and her writing and commitment to truth above tactfulness inspired me to try and make a change for myself in a way that I could not as a member of the SGA executive board. Over the past year, I’ve written about a lot of difficult topics – from campus safety crackdowns to controversial hiring decisions – and it’s been terrifying. On an episode of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom (which can be watched on your complimentary HBOGo subscription, courtesy of Conn), the journalists and producers working at the series’ fictional news network decided that they were going to present issues truthfully, as opposed to pretending that every side to an argument always holds the same level of factual authority. It is this sentiment, and the constant support, patience, and listening from my fellow editors, especially Maia, that have helped me overcome my fear of being unliked and produce some of the best work I’ve ever written.
I still care that people like me, but I’m no longer afraid to potentially sacrifice my urge to find truth, however ugly, and my near-pathological desire to seek fairness in everything I see and do. I think a lot of people deal with these feelings to different degrees, and my advice to them would be to find people who get it, find the best vehicle through which to affect change, and remember that, if someone doesn’t like you for presenting the truth to the best of your ability, you probably don’t want to spend time with them anyway.
