By Allie Hayes
Dallas, TX –
I am told that I am in the process of discovering myself, that my age is a tell-tale sign that I am just beginning to understand my beliefs, and that in a few more years, I will be able to know "who I am." But what if, by some far-fetched notion, I do not want to find myself? Then, are the ideas of the adolescent need to find a self thrown out the window? If so, then toss away because I stand here asking you the same question. Have you found yourself?
I would hope that your answer was "no" because in all truth and honesty you shouldn't have found yourself even if your years are many more than mine. My beliefs are as concrete as my mother's, as my grandmother's, as my great-grandmother's because the difference between beliefs and true beliefs is that true beliefs change with time. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
It is my nature to steer away from consistency, changing my beliefs within the hour. That is not to say that I have not made an attempt to find them. I have sorted out the doctrines of the religious, I have wafted through the platforms of nearly every political party, and still I remain a believer in nothing with a name.
My nothing with a name then, are those my beliefs? I can't be too sure because I have realized through my search that I am influenced daily by friends, by family, by media. So where, in what way, do I decide which beliefs are mine and which beliefs are the property of my influencers?
In truth, I can't separate the two so I have resorted to finding my beliefs through logic. To find the best, most logical thing, you must stick your hands into it and dig around until you find a hole. When that hole, created by illogic, is found, you can choose your beliefs by what makes the most sense, what has the least holes. My beliefs are never concrete because there is always a chance of finding a hole. Instead, they are only planted. They can be moved again.
And so while I might tell you that now at this very moment, I believe in a higher-being, I believe in stem-cell research, I believe that abortion should not be a form of birth control, I am fiscally Republican, it all can change the moment I think about it too much.
Even though I have yet to see 18 years pass by me, I have one belief that seems to stand the years: all beliefs will be questioned, rearranged, consolidated, but they will never be truly found. I tell you now that I will not find myself or my true beliefs in this lifetime. But I will try. It will be hard and I will get lost. But not to worry, I'm already starting to get the hang of it.
Allie Hayes is a senior from The Hockaday School in Dallas.