Let’s be honest, we’re college students. We usually don’t like waking up.
When I roll off the top bunk and my feet hit the cool wood floor, my first thoughts usually involve reasons not to climb back into bed. I like it there. It’s a comfortable cocoon. I’ve noticed I need to phrase my momentary mental deliberations as reasons to stay awake, rather than reasons not to fall back asleep.
“There’s coffee” is usually more affective than “the snooze button will wake up my roommate.”
But awakening is not just from slumber. We awaken to injustice. We awaken to others’ ideas and to new opinions. Often, we are slow to rouse to these shifted perspectives. Doing so means an uncomfortable fall from our high and comfortable bed where we rest in our own perspective.
We would do well to refuse the snooze button and wake up on time. To help this process — in the context of handling different opinions — let’s put ourselves in the other’s position when reading something with which we initially do not agree. Students of communication recognize this as perspective taking.
I enrolled in the school of perspective-taking while living abroad in Taiwan. There, college-aged students asked me why Americans their age rushed out of their parents’ home to live on their own or away at university. Answering, “Well, why wouldn’t they?” didn’t fly. In pausing, I realized the validity of their question. In the process, I was awakened not only to their perspective, but to my own. As an American, I value freedom and independence. That mentality has seeped into many facets of my worldview. In a culture that values the family-unit or group, moving out at age 18 makes much less sense.
It helps me to realize my primary cultural lens is not to be an American one, but from the perspective of the Kingdom of God. Here, I am to be quick to listen and slow to speak. With this lens, I value others above myself — and above my opinions. If there is an issue the campus is asleep to, may we wake them up with coffee and a gentle nudge, not a shrill alarm.
How does one do this with a newspaper column? By giving a voice to those on campus who feel voiceless. My desire is that this column will be well-rounded and balanced, that it will offer articles that highlight a variety of issues prevalent in our lives as students.
I hope that this year, the opinions section of The Chimes is characterized by a love for truth, a care for the people involved, and a concern for handling different perspectives well. Will you join me in this pursuit? Read critically. Contribute intentionally. Communicate well. Oh, and wake up and smell the coffee.
