Chayma Charifi

It’s hard to mess up an egg. They’re just so versatile. You can have them boiled or fried. You can have them sunny side up on a nicely toasted piece of sourdough bread (with feta on top if you’re distinguished—like I am). You can have them poached or deviled. Omelets and frittatas are great options. And, quite classically, you can have them scrambled.

None of these options, however, allow you to enjoy the egg with the shell. It must be cracked.

I’m a very scared person. I’m scared of everything all the time. I’m consumed with crippling fear as soon as I wake up. I get scared of the notifications I’ll see when I unlock my phone. I am fearful of who I’ll run into on my way to class or to the grocery store and of how they might perceive me. I am scared of sending that text, making that call, having that conversation. I fear public perception; I fear my own thoughts; I fear what I truly believe; I fear what I don’t know; I fear the consequences of what I already know.

I am so f—ing scared all the goddamn time.

A fear that dictated a lot of my life is the fear of being ruined and being seen as ruined. Deathly scared of making the wrong decision, I abstained from making any decisions at all and became a complacent figure in my own life. I would let the days pass me by while sitting in my bed, staring at the ceiling for hours, thinking, “At least I have some control. At least I can’t say I ruined things.”

I was that egg with its shell still intact: unable to enjoy myself or be enjoyed, because I was so scared of living as myself, yolk and all.

I was scared of being a bad person, of hurting strangers, peers and loved ones unintentionally, so I ghosted everyone I cared about. I was scared of finding out that I was an idiot who just happened to stumble into a place surrounded by smart people, so I disengaged from academics or any sort of intellectually stimulating conversation. I was scared that I was inherently unlovable, so I became emotionally volatile in prospective romantic relationships. I was scared that there was no future for me so I made sure my present was miserable.

I became so existential, so depressed, so succumbed to this fear that all of my worst fears came true. I was so afraid of taking charge in my own life, of cracking my shell, of choosing a course of action, of deciding who I am, that I let the world decide who I was for me. I was so filled with anguish and despair, and I thought I reached my wits’ end:

“That’s it. It’s ruined.”

My life looked completely different. I was scared of losing relationships, and I lost them. I was scared of being perceived in certain ways, yet inaction on my part induced those perceptions anyway. (Perhaps those perceptions would have existed with action, too.) Everything I feared most happened.

And it felt amazing.

God, it was so freeing. I was so concerned with keeping everything intact, not ruining anything, not making a mess. And you know what? I found that the relationships I gained, the opportunities that fell onto my lap and the peace I discovered from cracking that shell (and I mean, really cracking it, just going to town) were so rewarding.

I realized that I’m not a bad person, but I have certainly hurt people. That the cycle of hurt, forgiveness and growth is constant, and not something I should escape, but embrace.

I’m not “stupid,” and not knowing something is not the end of the world. Learning is the end goal.

I’m not inherently unlovable—no one is—and I should fully embrace who I am to invite the people who can care for me to do so in ways I deserve.

The point is not what I learned, though. The point is this: Whatever you think will, or has, ruined your life, is not doing that. It is rearranging it. You are meant to be rearranged. You are meant to take on many forms. You are meant to find out who you really are, as a consequence of all your minor and major f–k-ups.

Ruin things purposefully and by accident. Do it publicly. Be really loud and annoying about it. Be afraid. Embrace that fear. Because the worst will come anyway, and you’ll be all jumbled up. But that’s okay. Because it’s not ruined, it’s scrambled.

And I don’t know about you, but I love a scrambled egg.

Chayma Charifi is a member of the Class of 2025.