I felt like an elephant sitting in silence after I shared my worry about the election. As the advisory teacher made no comment and quickly shifted toward the basics of electoral colleges, I shifted in my seat uneasily. I should have given a correct answer, something that is more important: abortion, women’s rights, immigrants, or even the economy. However, when the teacher cold-called me, I told her that my Chinese friends and I feared it would be difficult to stay in the US if I wanted to major in STEM.

      Expectations like this make me question if I still have free will. Even when the scepter of freedom is bestowed upon me, I only feel like a puppet emperor in my parents’ clothes. When I think about my goals, my dreams, and my worries, I struggle to gain ownership over my thoughts. As a teenager, I feel intrigued by every perspective expressed, and I am truly enlightened to hear the reasoning behind every opinion. My pores are drenched in the information, and as I start analyzing them, the information is marinating in my flesh. I feel so rational, so open-minded, so thoughtful——until the bubble bursts and I realize that there is another truth that I have never considered before. I scramble to start forming a new opinion, to start a second round of marination, but I cannot free myself from the preconceptions that have formed in me. They seem to be a part of me, even though they were not originally. Are these thoughts mine, or did I adopt them without thinking through? Did I only care about immigrants because it is politically correct, or am I genuinely empathizing with them? Even after peeling off the layer of expectations, I cannot scrutinize my true fears and worries. Why do I care so much about staying in the US? If it’s for diversity, why do I like diversity? It seems like all my preferences and beliefs have a source from which they originated. Someone influenced me, and my thoughts are never my own. I feel like artificial intelligence, an embodiment of all the information that has been fed to me in my years of training. I do not know what I want, because my desires belong to my parents, my teachers, the news commenter, and the stranger who sits in front of me on the bus. I can never fully separate myself from the environment around me.

      At the same time, this confusion also keeps me curious about the world around me. As I listen to more perspectives, I interrogate myself on what I agree with and why it resonates with me. I feel excited to explore more about current global issues and to learn more about myself along the way.