outlining your life
quotes that are quintessential to my day-to-day and beyond
I remember the first day of high school in my first period class. It was English 9 Honors, and I was sitting at a table with my best friend, Kelsey, and some acquaintances. The room was windowless, barren except for the sterile white-painted brick walls and shaggy carpet. A converted printer room, the room always smelled like a left-open Lunchable, and it was never able to reach the Goldilocks zone temperature-wise.
Starting high school felt like flipping over a new page. Even though I had gone to school with the same kids for the past five or so years, I wanted to unlock new parts of me. Maybe I could play field hockey? I did a camp once, and it was predetermined by my dad that I would play a sport in high school since “no one in the family has ever not played a sport in high school”. Let’s just say I broke the mold, unless you count improv as a sport. Maybe I would do debate? I wanted to seem like an edgy intellect by delving into niche topics and arguing with others over topics way outside our field of view age-wise. But I’ll note that every argument I’ve ever gotten into usually ended up with me crying or giving up. Whatever it was, I wanted to refine my identity. The age of fourteen seemed like the perfect time to truly become rooted in who I was.
The assignment that launched me into the tumultuous workload of high school life was finding a quote, person, or figure that represented me. The class’s myriad of mementos would be hung on the bulletin board in our English class the whole year to serve as inspiration for us all.
I took this assignment in stride. The idea of a singular phrase capturing my aspirations posed a big feat. I think I spent hours scrolling through Pinterest and Safari to look for the perfect couple of words to showcase me. Typical.
I had been presented with a similar task in the past in my 7th grade creative writing class. With that task, however, we had to choose a quote by Henry David Thoreau. It seems silly (which it was). I basically had no similarities with Thoreau. He was a renowned transcendentalist who found ultimate solace from nature and isolation; I can’t go five minutes without some source of stimulation.
“This world is but a canvas to our imagination.”
This quote by Thoreau threw me for a loop. The fact that he saw the world as ours to mold and that it was up to us in what we pursued granted me a sense of liberation I never perceived before, so much so that I made it a permanent part of my instagram bio ;)
Sure, it’s quite corny, and I’m sure whoever stumbles across my page thinks I’m adjacent to the “bible verse girlies”, using some profound looking verbiage to try to sound sophisticated. But I think it’s a good reminder: the sky’s the limit, as they say.
On that same wavelength, I’ve always gravitated towards the saying “shoot for the stars because why not?” I particularly remember saying this to my parents when I explained to them how for every Geometry assessment I took, I wrote at the top that my goal was to get a 100% (Mr. Brownrigg truly must have pitied me because I could not do proofs for the life of me.) I knew that I would rarely get a 100%, but if I made a visual reminder that my goal was a 100%, then maybe, just maybe, I’d manifest it (I think more sitting next to Reed Heflin helped with this.)
For my freshman year project, the quote I settled on was “Nothing is impossible; the word itself says “I’m possible”” by Audrey Hepburn. I honestly think I primarily chose this quote because I found Audrey Hepburn to be such a girlboss. Like hellooo, literally Roman Holiday (I haven’t seen Roman Holiday, but I know Nicki’s version of it)? Breakfast at Tiffany’s?? Icon idgaf.
Nonetheless, it stuck. Just like the other quotes, this one had me broaden the scope of what I believed I could achieve.
On this same line of thinking, 6th grade Hamilton fanatic Kieran taped, “there’s a million things I haven’t done, but just you wait, just you wait,” to the corner of her desk. I think I did it because I wanted my classmates to know that I was ambitious, and I wanted everybody who sat at my desk from other classes besides homeroom to know that it was mine.
These quotes that I’ve come across over the years have transformed from being just words on a page into becoming enveloped into my identity.
The most substantial example of this is the quote my grandpa has made our family insignia, in a way. As long as I can remember, my grandpa would write in birthday cards, tell us over the phone, or say with a pat on the back to us in person to “keep those Irish eyes smiling.” It’s supposed to be a declaration of optimism, a trait that he has always embodied despite his hardships, yet I took it as more.
I took this saying as an invitation to go after the things that scare me, the things that others say I cannot do, or the things that I didn’t even think could be done. This saying invites room for mistakes to be made along the way, and serves as reassurance for when things don’t go as planned. It’s a sort of comfort in that I have the support of those who I know believe in me, even if I don’t have that constant verbal affirmation that they do.
I hold this motto close to my heart. In fact, I even wrote my main college essay about it. Its words encapsulates family, my dreams, and self reliance. It reminds me of times spent with loved ones long gone, or new relationships that can bud from chance encounters.
Quotes can be seen as silly or arbitrary. They can be both. I know I’m not the only one who has a running list of spontaneous quotes said by friends on random occasions. I can recall many laughs that erupted from a couple of words said, or fond memories shared over a mere phrase.
Although not all quotes take on a serious demeanor, I think it can be said that quotes outline our lives. Maybe having a haphazard mix of goofiness with gravity makes our sense of self more imperfectly perfect.