Worthy of All

I was young when I first heard the question: “When a tree falls in a forest and nobody’s around to hear it, does it make a sound?” The second-grader stared at the person who had asked the question, wondering silently if someone had to be stupid to ask a dumb question. I answered that of course it did, duh. Now, when I hear that phrase, my reaction is different. No longer a sure response, but a burning question silently perched in my heart. “When did we start judging our worth as dependent upon others?” This is followed by more questions, insistent and probing, cutting apart the expectations around me. Why must we be sure that our peers, our family, our friends acknowledge us? Why is something not true unless someone else says it? Why are we not good enough for ourselves? When these questions arise, sometimes I look down at my side and think about that second-grader, so amazed by the insanity of such a bizarre and obvious question. My fall may not be heard by others, nor my sounds. But the sound is there. It is there.
Since then, I have had more questions. I have heard the fear of society pressed against the backs of girls younger than me, smiling at one another and saying they were worried taking a single cupcake at a party for them would make them fat. Ten years ago, they would have had to be restrained by their mothers from eating so many that they got a stomach ache. Why should they have to worry about that? Why is being fat not pretty? Why should men or women have to be someone else’s idea of pretty? When they look in the mirror, whose voice is it whispering that they aren’t good enough? It is not that five-year-old in overalls and a red bandana declaring that she is going to be a cowgirl and coming up with some adorable reason for why she should have another vanilla cupcake. So why is it there? Why should girls have to justify eating a lot of food? Even when they have justified it to themselves, what makes them have to say it aloud? Why do they have to explain their hunger to their peers? Why should they not take that cupcake? Or that second helping of pasta? Who wants their five-year-old to think about the calories of the food she’s eating? Why should a fifteen-year-old then? Being healthy and being not fat are different. And comfort in oneself, that is something else all entirely. My questions produce more questions. Why is our comfort in our own skin not enough? Why should we have to care what others think of us? Why is being fat unacceptable for boys or girls? Why does it matter? Why isn’t the only thing that’s important the health and love you give your body? When I think about how I will have to explain this to my own daughter someday, I pray I can also explain why she is perfect just as she is, and that she will hear that with the same faith she hears the beginning with.
I am in high school. My questions grow. When we look in the mirror and think, “I like how my hair looks,” why does it make us so much happier when someone else praises it? Why is it vanity to appreciate ourselves? Isn’t there more to our world than the views, the opinions, the understanding of others? Why is our world dependent on other people? True, humans need humans, that is only natural. But why is our fundamental existence defined by others? Why do we need someone else to confirm our truth? Instead of, “I like how my hair looks,” why can we not say, “My hair is beautiful.”? Why do we need others to tell us our perfections? Why should our preferences not be all we strive for? I am the one living in this body, seeing with these eyes, hearing with these ears, thinking with this mind, and feeling with this heart. My experiences are different from everyone else’s in this room, and no two people are alike. Maybe everyone just thought, “I’ve heard that before.” Maybe they’ve been thinking that this entire time. If so, I challenge you. Why don’t you believe these words? Are you dismissing it not because you have heard them a thousand times before but because you have never internalized them? Are you uncomfortable with the idea that your perfection is not the same as the person sitting next to you, and that that is okay? Their truth does not have to be yours.
I believe that truth does not change. And the ability to strip away the ideas of the world and see something for what it truly is, beyond differences, beyond prejudice, beyond ignorance and stereotypes and expectations, that is a skill blessed upon the young. Words have power no matter what the age is of the person speaking them. If not power to others, then power to yourself. Growing up means we see complications in the world. And sometimes we lose sight of the simple truths.
I still have questions. Why are we surprised at low self-esteem when constantly cautioning against vanity until that voice telling us that seeing ourselves as lovely is a sin plays through our heads whenever we look in the mirror? Why is it that we are not worthy until someone says we are? Why are our words, our actions, our acknowledgment, not good enough for us? Why should we not believe that we are beautiful? Smart? Accomplished? Brave? Kind? Why should we not believe that we are worthy? When did we stop listening to ourselves? Others voices matter, of course they do. But the only one who can believe something is you. You have to be the one to admit those things before you believe them. No one can make you. And other people won’t always be around to say them. So I’m not going to tell you that you are special, that you are amazing, that you are perfect just as you are. I’m going to ask you, slowly and surely, day by day, to start telling yourself that. You have to listen to yourself, because everyone won’t always listen to you. You have to believe in yourself, because those that society has taught us to rely on and believe that they hold power over us, those whose words define us and shape us, will not be there at midnight whispering evil into our ears. We internalize voices. So why not internalize our own?
Everyone in this world is worthy of all. All of everything. And when you tell yourself that, when you tell yourself that you are beautiful and smart and accomplished and brave and kind and worthy of everything you have, I hope you’ll believe it. Because your words, your voice, your actions, and your truth defines who you are. In conclusion: Yes, our trees will always make sounds when they fall.