The Worlds a Stage, and We, The Players

Shakespeare could have been an EMU student when he declared in "As You Like It," All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays many parts."

As we begin this new school year we stand in the gap between friends made here on campus and friends back home, many of the latter stuck in their high school roles. How well do we really know each other?

Perhaps back home, Joe was the creepy guy in the hallway who no one really knew. Now he's SGA president and captain of the soccer team. Or maybe Mary was the one who pulled up to the prom in a limo wearing the skimpy, skin-tight dress, teetering drunkenly on her high heels. Mary is now a CA, has the highest GPA in her class and leads chapel every third week of the month

. We seem to have different terms for our friends from home and our friends from here. We refer to our high school friends as "our friends from home", and while at home, we refer to "our friends from school." Similarly, we ourselves switch roles between locations.

Everyone plays a role in a group. There is the funny guy, the nice girl, the quiet one, the listener, the liar, or maybe the leader; subconsciously the group never makes a decision without his or her approval. Do they play the same role back home?

We will likely discover, when consulting both the "at home" friends and our newly-made campus friends, that we play very different roles between home and school. Here, we might be "the spontaneous do-er;" things happen when energized with our personalities. Back home, we play a much different role, retaining our spontaneity, but often becoming the follower.

So, let's step back and evaluate our roles at EMU. Where do we fit in? In talking to our friends, we may be surprised what we learn.

-Cheers,

Jake