Many students fondly remember their first moments on College Hill — meeting their first-year roommate, getting Jo’s at 12 a.m., taking pictures with our dearly departed Blueno.
But the only memory that has stuck with me is the image of my parents waving goodbye and fading over the horizon of Brown’s campus. As I watched their figures disappear, I wondered: What now?
What is my purpose here?
Over the thousands of other kids who fought and struggled to make it into these walls…
Why me?
As school started, I was quick to join every club I could and shop every class I had time for, to find a sense of belonging and purpose in the comfort of others.
I wanted the picturesque college experience that was advertised in TV and movies. I often say to myself that life gives us context for the art we consume. Quickly, I discovered that this idealistic, broad-brush view of college as four years full of fun and exploration is a myth — a beautiful lie sold to us all on the big screen. College is hard and sometimes painful. The long nights spent doing homework that I procrastinated. The walks through the Main Green wishing I had a group to sit and socialize with. The impending doom of graduation and trying to find a job to pay off student loans.
What I found, in the end, is that no one would truly ever understand me. Year by year passed, and through the many classes I took and the people I encountered here at Brown, I learned to walk on my own — to hold my own hand and not latch so desperately to the hands of others for warmth and acceptance. Gradually, I learned to be comfortable being alone, holding my own opinions, my own thoughts, even if it meant not having many friends.
My first real connection at Brown was with my English professor, Melinda Rabb. I would go to her office hours seeking guidance and answers for life’s greatest questions. And even though I wouldn’t find those answers there, she helped me see that I was living in a cycle: a constant loop of defining my self-worth through the acceptance of others. Now was my time to break free.
So why bring all this up now?
As graduates, we stand at a turning point in our lives. Some of us are headed to California, others abroad and some are even just headed home. No matter where you go, I encourage you to take a risk, a leap of faith. Don’t allow yourself to disappear into the crowd. Stand out and think differently. Don’t allow yourself to be defined by friends or family. It is in these critical moments, when we are thrust into the arms of strangers, that we have the chance to define who we truly are.
There’s a great man in my life: my father, Russell Burnett. He has sacrificed and put his life on the altar so that his children could have all the opportunities and advantages in life. As I was getting ready to leave for Brown, he gave me a picture of my great grandparents. In tears, he talked about the sacrifices they made so that the family and my father could have a fresh start in this country after migrating from Barbados. He gave me that picture, and with it passed down the weight and responsibility of generations. All that power and obligation in the palm of my hand.
Every day since, I have carried the enormous weight of living up to that standard and being something greater. I’m sure many of you, as students and as individuals, can relate to the pressure placed on us all to be more. It’s an incredible burden that influences and shapes our every action.
At the same time, growing up, because of the color of my skin, everyone would tell me how to act. They would say “Because you’re Black you have to dress like this… ”
“You can’t listen to this music.”
“You can’t like white people.”
In every facet of my life, there are tremendous influences telling me who to be and how to act.
And to it all, I say: “No.”
My purpose isn’t to please my father and it isn’t to disappear into a crowd. It’s to be the best Ryan Burnett I can be — to love myself and accept the man in the mirror despite all my flaws and shortcomings.
This photograph of my ancestors — at one time a great weight that felt impossible to bear — is now a source of inspiration. I won’t run from the responsibility passed down onto me; rather I’ll fight, in my own way, to give my children a future where they are free to be who they truly are. I will break free from the cycle of finding self-worth in the acceptance of others. In my time here at Brown I learned how to truly be myself — to be more loving, more compassionate — but also became more aware that this is the only life I have. I have to spend it doing what matters to me and doing my best to inspire those that will come after.
I wish I could go back and redo it all. To see College Hill for the first time through the new eyes I have now. But the moment has passed, and time goes on. We march onward toward new challenges.
So, I encourage you all, no matter what stage of life you’re in, to hold your own hand.
Define yourself in the context of no one else but yourself and be reborn in the light of a brighter dawn.
