Popular by Mitch Prinstein

Author:Mitch Prinstein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2017-05-08T10:12:00+00:00

PART III

So What Do We Do Now?

CHAPTER 6

Our High School Legacy

How We Can Conquer the Prom Queen Today

If you’re like most people, then high school may seem like a distant memory. Even if not many years have passed since you attended, it still feels like ancient history. We can’t go back and change how popular we were back then, so what’s the point in even thinking about it now?

But what if I told you that those teenage experiences are still affecting you today? Not through just occasional memories, but thousands of times each day. Arguably, those old confrontations with popularity are the very basis for your adult personality.

Fortunately, even just being aware how this dynamic works can be remarkably powerful in helping to keep the prom queen or locker room bully from affecting your life today.

—

A few weeks ago, I stumbled across my high school yearbook and, against my better judgment, decided to flip through the pages. There I was—tinted glasses, wide-collared shirt, and a wannabe mullet.

Who was that? Was I really the same person today as that boy in the yearbook? I recognized him—he was like a long-lost little brother—but I’ve now lived more years since that photo than I had when it was taken. My tastes have changed, and my hopes and dreams have evolved. I’m not that person anymore, am I?

Many of us feel this sense of distance when we think about ourselves over the course of time. Sometimes it occurs when we see an old photograph that seems like an abandoned version of who we once were. At other times, we may look in the mirror and be surprised to see someone so old staring back at us. It’s amazing how detached we can feel from who we once were or even who we are now.

Of course, that really was me—I am the same person. Or at least, there are plenty of through lines that connect that teenage boy to the man I am now. For instance, the boy in that yearbook was very late to mature—even as a teenager, I was a pip-squeak. Today, I still religiously lift weights, which is probably not a coincidence. And surely my tendency to behave and dress like a young, cool professor is just an evolution of my mouthing off in high school advanced placement classes—both good strategies to avoid seeming like a total nerd.

These are the kind of continuities that are easy to recognize—the traces of our adolescent selves we see in the people we are today. Perhaps you like the same music. Maybe you still have the same core group of friends, or still wear your hair in the same way (thankfully, I do not). These are the superficial vestiges of our past that we feel we can control.

But what if the legacy of our adolescence extends deeper than that? What if it still marks us today in ways we don’t even realize? And what if it is affecting us in ways that undermine our lives?

However alarming that is to imagine, accumulating evidence suggests that this is indeed the case.

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