By Keya Nijhawan
“You” is a word that comes across as simple, but Ms. Newton, mother of the Newton triplets and one of my favorite people who helps guide me through life, knew my brain would find a way to twist it into the most complicated thing.
And she was correct.
First of all, “you” is different for every person because every “you” is not the same. The reason for this is that “you” is commonly used in questions.
For example, “Who are you?” According to my brother, it is a freebie question in all job interviews, but if you get it wrong, it could break your chances of nabbing the position.
That threw me for a loop. How can I get myself–my “you”–wrong?
As we spoke more, he explained that getting it wrong entailed the way you present and explain yourself. This led me to think about how my dad is always badgering me about sitting up straight, standing tall, making eye contact, and speaking clearly. So, part of “you” is how you present yourself.
Having to explain YOUrself makes it sound like a trial, but I guess in an interview, you basically are on trial. But if it is a vital part of an interview, how do you know who you are?
The way I see it, I just am who I am; I don’t know why or how, I just am. However, this answer would not serve me well in an interview or a college essay, as there must be a reason for “you.”
The easy reason would be because my mother birthed me, but that event did not shape me into who I am today. It just physically created me. Then again, I don’t really know who I am today. I’ve always thought “who” was a person, so wouldn’t that mean “you” is the person being addressed? How are there more parts to “you”? Per usual, my brain came up with this question but could not come up with an answer, so I headed to Google…
The first hit was a children’s song, which made me laugh because I feel like a child wondering about the meaning of “you.” Maybe this is something I should have figured out when I was in first grade, not 11th.
So, I know how I was physically created, and that’s one part of “you,” and the other part of “you” must be the mental part.
The mental part of you is slowly changed as you go through life. But this made me wonder how I could know what all of the things are that have changed me. For instance, I suffered a six-month concussion, which physically hurt my brain but mentally made me look at things with a whole new perspective. I realized that the smallest of decisions can affect the longest periods of time. I made the decision to play in a soccer game when I knew I had hit my head in the game the day before and things were not okay, but I still chose to play because I thought of that game as everything. I have now come to realize that the game was not everything, and had I realized that earlier, I would not have had to endure six months of pain.
So basically, “you” is what you make of “you.” And while it feels fixed (after all, we’re stuck in the same bodies our whole lives), it’s really always changing. If your mind is like mine, you could end up on a wild loop about what the word truly means, but at the end of it, it’s what you make of it, and it is what’s been made of you.
