Insights of a Dead Poet: What Georgia Douglas Johnson has to do with a Modern-day College Student

I’m staring at a clock that reads 12:33 AM in the upper right-hand corner of my laptop screen, avoiding studying for a test I have to take in 9 hours. I can still feel the remnants of a significant caffeine dosage, of which my system hasn’t experienced in months, coursing through my body, lending my brain such a clarity and awareness that I can’t fall asleep. Recent-born memories of a day of accomplishment drift to my mind; a day where I discovered something about myself.

I can lead.

I always knew I could lead, in a way. Heck, I have led in a way. I’ve lead prayer groups, I’ve led worship, I’ve led Bible studies. I led a backstage crew for 3 different theatrical productions, a more complicated task than what its description gives it credit for. I suppose I should say that I’ve rediscovered that fact about myself.

I’ve too long let other people do the leading in my life—showing me how to act, what to say, how to stand, how to smile. I’ve too long allowed others to dictate my reactions to the reality I perceive around me. I have chosen to crawl into the corner of restrained comfort, allowing the world to wrap cordon after cordon around my swiftly weakening wings.

The opinions of those closely associated with my life have dictated my actions, yet again. It’s time to break free.

The Newsies, a Broadway, contains a song in which boys under the age of 18 cry, “Rise, and seize the day.” In essence, an encouragement to earn the right to say, “Veni, Vedi, Vici.”

I suppose all this is to say that what I truly learned today is that independence is a choice that can only be made by those who are stable enough in who they are, not who they feel they should be. As soon as you choose to please the individuals around you at every fleeting moment, your sense of identity becomes deeply embedded within those individuals.

An old poem comes to mind, written by Georgia Douglas Johnson.

“Your world is as big as you make it


I know, for I used to abide


In the narrowest nest in a corner


My wings pressing close to my side.

But I sighted the distant horizon


Where the sky-line encircled the sea


And I throbbed with a burning desire

To travel this immensity.

I battered the cordons around me


And cradled my wings on the breeze

Then soared to the uttermost reaches


With rapture, with power, with ease!”

Living life as a college student means more than stressing over homework and running on an average of 4 hours of sleep. The purpose it serves is greater than grades and a piece of paper that says you’ve graduated because you’re smart. It’s about discovering who you are and what you’re capable of. It’s time I batter the cordons around me, move on; become something greater than a people-pleaser. Time to become myself.

:-)