Leadership, Affinities, and The Self

I wrote this when I was feeling discouraged.

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I’ve been worrying that I will need to change myself radically in order to become a good Peace Corps volunteer…or worse: that I won’t be able to change.

Everyone always talks about how they “just aren’t that type of person,” or that they could never do a given thing because it goes against who they are. They draw clear lines around their “self,” bounded by likes and dislikes and notions of proficiency, what they are good and bad at.

I find myself thinking that when it really comes down to it, there is no such thing as this “essential self”. It’s a fiction we create to be comfortable. I came to the Peace Corps, in part, to test out this notion of the essentiality of self, to see how far I could push myself, and to see how moldable my “self” actually is. I have a feeling that by putting myself in a variety of new situations and in the company of a variety of new people, I will change me. It’s an exhilarating thought.

Right now, as I work on the ongoing project of integrating myself into the community, I find myself going through phases—highs and lows—a kind of emotional aftershock which I hope points towards the fact that I am indeed changing. This aftershock seems to come primarily out of the disparity between my expectations and often times radically different realities.

When I talk about my expectations, I’m talking about my vision of a good volunteer, ultimately my goal for myself. This vision has been informed and influenced by things I’ve read about Peace Corps, current volunteers I’ve met, impressions I get from the Peace Corps staff in Managua, and the stories I hear from people in my site about previous volunteers.

I’ve heard countless times that a good volunteer is a leader and a self-starter. This in and of itself doesn’t worry me, as I suppose I am a leader in a number of ways…what seems to push me into fits of guilt, self-pity, and worry is the thought that my interpretation of leadership may be different from the people who will be evaluating me on it, and that I will fail to make a difference by failing to adapt and accord with the interpretation of leadership that matters.

I came into Peace Corps thinking that I am best as a leader when it’s through tacit example. I try to live in the simplest and most honest way that I can. When left to my own devices, I am a fairly private person by nature and I try to radiate my love of learning in the hopes that it will inspire others to search in themselves for that same kind of drive.

I don’t have a background in the brand of leadership that requires you to captivate and dictate to large groups of people. I am uncomfortable with the power that comes with this kind of leadership. It seems so direct and assuming, so arrogant. There is no room for deep thinking, for second-guessing.

If there’s one thing I love doing, it’s second-guessing. My natural mode of thinking seems to be the questioning of norms and rules, and therefore, I am uncomfortable with the idea of taking them up as my mantle. I can imagine someone reading this and thinking that I sound like a very young and naive person. Perhaps they’re right. Perhaps I just haven’t grown up yet.

Maybe my Peace Corps experience will force me to grow up. Maybe a big part of it will be nagging failure and making a fool of myself. But I also realize that failing and making a fool of oneself is a great way to learn true humility, and I suppose humility is a quality just as important as leadership, if not an essential part of it.