In Hamlet, Polonius tells his son Leartes, "To thy own self be true." Sounds like great advice. The problem is Shakespeare is too much of a genius to make anything easy. Polonius is a long-winded, pompous parental figure at best, a deceptive, self-serving lackey at worst. So taking his advice at face value is about as wise as believing Lady Veronica on the Psychic Network. But even psychics and fools stumble upon wisdom and truth on occasion. So where does that leave Leartes? Well, running off to France, actually. For those of us women with smaller trust funds and less tolerance for underarm hair, we're left contemplating shades of meaning.
I'm a jeans and t-shirt kind of gal, but I wouldn't show up in such an outfit for an interview or a first date. I also wouldn't share that I sometimes swear like a trucker and enjoy children's cereal, multi-colored marshmallows and all. And I'd probably outright lie in an interview if asked what the last book I read was-no school wants to advertise its middle school English teacher likes racy fantasy romance novels. There are rules of etiquette and certain expectations that we're just expected to meet in life. And we do, with no real worries about whether we're selling ourselves out, even if they require a few white lies or omissions of truth. Employers, dates, and new acquaintances not only tolerate these half-truths, they expect them. So we play the game, even though I'm quite certain any observant potential employer or partner only needs to see me teeter a few feet in a pair of pumps to know my preferred footwear is neither heeled nor pointy. And one look at my bookshelves is all that would be required to deduce I like my fictional men tall, buff, and fanged.
So when does giving people what they want to see and hear turn into being disingenuous to who we are? We all have unique qualities that certain types of people will be put off by: our values, our sense of independence, the way we interact with people, what makes us laugh, or what makes us cringe. If someone were to ask me at an interview how important professional dress is to me, should I lie? Frankly, though I like to look nice, I don't think I'd be a better teacher if I wore suits or skirts more often. Considering how often I like to plop onto the floor to work with a group of kids, such clothing would probably actually hinder my teaching style-and that is part of who I truly am, not just a surface level quirk I could easily toss aside. If a potential employer, or date, or friend values something trivial over who I really am and what I have to offer as a person, they're not who I want to work for, date, or be friends with anyways.
Women, in particular, seem to be tugged in every direction by society's expectations. Our mothers taught us to be ladies; our media taught us to be sex symbols. We're described as simpering if we too easily relent, yet called bitches if we stand up and fight. Implicitly or explicitly, we're simultaneously told to be fit, but not physical; sexy, but not slutty; intelligent, but not bookish; and independent, but only until we meet a man. Nobody ever told us to just be-or, if they did, we couldn't hear them over the din.
Like too many women, I spent nearly all of my adolescence, and much too much of my twenties, worrying about being what the rest of the world wanted me to look like or act like. Where did that get me? Not far; I have a closet full of "sexy, feminine" shoes I can't walk more than ten feet in. Since then I've filled my remaining closet space with flip-flops, flats, and sneakers. In those shoes, my shoes, I've taken the trip to study abroad that I was too intimidated to take in college, have written two novels after I had almost given up seeing myself as a writer, and have become so lost in the joy of holding my best friend's baby that for a moment I stopped worrying about when I'd have my own. I've learned to accept my own plodding pace and have gone farther at thirty-one than I ever could have at eighteen or twenty-five when I was too concerned with keeping up with the crowd.
In case you forgot, near the end of Hamlet, Polonius hides himself in an arras and ends up dead, mistaken for someone he's not. This time I think Shakespeare made the lesson a tad more apparent, though perhaps a little melodramatic. No one's likely to die for selling out. Then again, they might just miss out on a lot of living.
No comments:
Post a Comment