Hello World!
By Margaret Lee
May 3, 2014
If you're like me, you've spent a lot of time wondering what life is all about.
How does it all work?
What is happiness? What is success?
Why should I always do what I'm told (by parents, teachers, coaches, religious leaders, the law, even older siblings)? How can I be a unique individual while “being good” and staying within all these lines of rules and expectations?
You may be wondering, what's this “be who you are” stuff? How can I be my genuine self if I'm not sure what that is?
(I'm wondering, “Are all my blog posts going to start with a million questions and few answers?”)
Today I have a good sense of who I am and what makes me so happy to be alive. It might surprise you to know that I spent much of high school and college being a very good girl... and hating myself. I graduated high school at the top of an extremely competitive, accomplished class, got lead roles in plays and musicals, and was reasonably popular in college, but I was never good enough. Perfectionism is a fuel for achievement, but it's also a poison. I didn't know what my life was for and often felt lonely in a crowd. I wanted to make a difference in the world but didn't know how.
If you're a teen or young adult agonizing about the meaning of life and how you're going to navigate your way through it, my biggest tip for you is to be patient with yourself and others, and never give up. We are all works in progress, no matter how young or old. That's why it's “Comfortable in OUR Skin,” not only the sum of our individual journeys, but also our collective destination. I hope that, by coming together, the world will become a more harmonious place, one where teen angst and suicide, prejudice, youth homicide and bullying will no longer be the public health concerns they are today. As a pediatric dermatologist I touch and try to heal a lot of skin from the outside in. As a doctor-patient patient advocate I'm working from the inside out.
It only takes a few minutes to brighten someone's day. For all you know, it's the push that instills a belief in everyday heroes, selflessness and love, or motivates someone to hang in there when they want to let go of it all. Choose to be a force for good and you can change the world. I have lived by this guiding principle since the evening a homeless man wandered into the MIT Student Center for a slice of pizza, sat down at my table and told me his story. He thanked me for listening and said I was beautiful and strong, that he knew I was destined to do good things. I'm not sure what he saw that made him say that, but it doesn't matter; it's just what I needed to hear that night, and it made me believe there could be angels on earth. It's what helped me choose medicine as a career, so that I could encourage others the same way. You can do it too, one person, one moment at a time. Start with “Hello!”
