Belonging. It is the one thing we always look for no matter where we are, who we are with. We looked for it on the first day of college as we nervously scanned the dining halls for someone to sit with, and we will look for it yet again when we leave Yale.

Some of us will find it through luck and others give it our all, but I think we can all agree that it’s the absolute sweetest when we feel like we belong. In that loud banging at the door when an a cappella group finally comes to tap us. At 2 a.m. talking with that one suitemate we previously never seemed to click with. Those Zoom mukbangs when we pretended to be ASMR artists.

More often than not, however, we put up this self-image that we are struggling to fit in when we aren’t. Finding belonging becomes a marathon race, and in our heads the finish line is the equivalent of having as many connections as possible. Always having something to do, someone to be with every moment of every day. We burn out when we realize that it’s not doable, and eventually, we find ourselves running alone in that marathon. It’s pouring rain and no one can make out our cries for help.

Frustrated, we unintentionally project this self judgment onto others. If there’s one thing I always hear popping up in conversations these past two months, it’s about who should belong at Yale in the first place. About who deserves to be here most and how it’s unfair that we work harder than others, only to have a more difficult time doing well, socially or otherwise. We start creating cookie-cutter images of our peers’ identities, whispering to friends that this guy is the popular recruited athlete. That one is another QuestBridge student on a full ride who doesn’t need to worry about her meal plans. Here comes the son of that one famous CEO, and over there is the international friend group that goes on a retreat every weekend.

The truth is, until we realize that no one deserves to be here any more or any less than every other person, we will never truly belong. You, me, him, her and them — we aren’t niches to be carved out, boxes to be checked off, labels to be peeled and slapped onto our foreheads for everyone to see. At the end of the day, we’re all Yalies, and beyond that, we’re all college students struggling to finish that long overdue problem set while cleaning up spilt ramen. We’re people with stories. People who deserve a second chance. We’re all lost — even if it feels like everyone else knows what they’re doing — and the day we finally know where we’re headed is the day we go out of our way to make others feel belonged.

True, we all gravitate toward certain people, and we’ll never get to meet every person at Yale, but we shouldn’t use either as grounds for how we choose to take care of, reach out to and love the people around us. Our journey to finding belonging should not be set on building ourselves a particular image, and it should not be intentionally wired so that we can achieve XYZ or meet ABC people in the future. There is nothing wrong with thinking ahead, but only when we stop obsessing with the future can we start living in the present, start appreciating the communities we would have never found if we had chosen to confine ourselves to preconceived labels.

Maybe these communities are the ones we already have. The communities that got us to where we are today and where we will be tomorrow, but which we took for granted in our pursuit for “more.” As Yalies, ignoring “more” is hard. It takes a lot to put our foot down and settle for enough, even if we have it all.

Yet, there is no “more” to belonging than remembering that one snowy school day when you turned around and saw Mom still standing by the door, watching to make sure that you crossed the first street safely. There is no “more” to belonging than realizing that you’re going to miss your cousin’s annoying laugh more than you thought you would. And there is no “more” to belonging than passing by your ex boyfriend’s favorite pizza place, smelling his cologne in the aroma — and being grateful that your relationship happened in the first place. Belonging is apologizing to ourselves because we do belong and we need to stop saying that we don’t. People love us, damn it, and we’ll do the world a favor by loving ourselves, too.

Sometimes, it’s not that we’re running alone in a thunderstorm. We are so set on achieving the nonexistent finish line we forget that there are people on the bleachers screaming out our names. In the rain, we can’t see that there are other runners in the same situation as ourselves — runners who are more than competitors with different numbers on their jerseys, who are there to help us up if we were to slip and fall. Runners on our team and runners we should make our friends.

Yale is challenging in more ways than one, but we all deserve to be here. Let’s make belonging something that everyone can feel.

BRIAN ZHANG is a first year in Davenport College. Contact him at brian.zhang@yale.edu.

BRIAN ZHANG
Brian Zhang is Arts editor of the Yale Daily News and the third-year class president at Yale. Previously, he covered student life for the University desk. His writing can also be found in Insider Magazine, The Sacramento Bee, BrainPOP, New York Family and uInterview. Follow @briansnotebook on Instagram for more!