A few days ago, I was chilling with a friend, and he suddenly said something that shouldn't have affected me so deeply. Looking back, it’s honestly kind of funny how such a tiny, random observation could completely derail my train of thought and get me overthinking so much.
“It’s like my ears have closed, and the yawn isn’t coming.” He looked at me expectantly. “You know what I’m talking about, right?”
I did, in fact, know exactly what he was talking about. It turns out that “popping your ears” to open up the ear canals happens to almost everyone. But it was really peculiar that before this, I had never thought to question whether it happened to others. I thought it was a completely unique, isolated experience that only happened to me. The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind that if I was experiencing it, some of the 8 billion people around me were too.
It made me realize how easy it is to trap ourselves in our own heads. As young people, we're constantly pressured to stand out and find our own distinct identity. But it can be exhausting trying to be totally unique all the time, and it ironically ends up making us feel way more isolated than we actually are.
When you start believing that your specific anxieties, quirks, or fears are exclusive to you, a cold sense of dread can settle in. If you don't believe me, I dare you to Google your most specific, late-night anxious thought, I almost guarantee someone on Reddit posted about it years ago.
But beneath that realization lies a huge amount of comfort. When my friend brought up the ear-popping thing, my instinctual reaction wasn’t despair, it was relief. I felt seen and understood.
While of course, I understand it is not usually something as simple as popping your ears, it is incredibly comforting to know you aren’t the only one navigating the trials and tribulations of life right now. Whether you're dealing with a brutal breakup, school stress, or feeling lost about the future, millions of peers are sitting in that exact same boat. They are surviving it, and you will too.
Therefore, while all of this means we aren’t completely unique in the world, it also means we aren’t completely alone. In a way, we are trading our uniqueness for understanding, empathy, and closure. It seems like a bargain to me.
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