“Because sometimes the truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve more,” Batman narrates at the end of “The Dark Knight,” as I lay propped in bed with my laptop.

My mind halted in that moment. Those two sentences flipped my philosophy on truth. Truth is cruel at times, and we deserve better. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

Since seventh grade, I had been a brutally honest person. I expressed unpleasant feelings as often as I expressed my undying love for everything and everyone around me. I wanted people to know me for who I really was; I didn’t want them to love my disguise. I didn’t want to hide behind a mask, for fear the mask might fall and I might end up hurting someone. If people knew my true self, they’d never be in for such a surprise.

I wanted to be openly hated or unconditionally loved; I didn’t want any hidden agendas. I wanted people to know I didn’t dislike them any more than I said I did or loved them any less than what they already knew. And sometimes, I wanted to just unburden myself – for myself – to get things out of my system and to clear the air. But if I didn’t want the burden of those thoughts myself, why did I let myself burden someone else with them?

I had been hurt in the past by being lied to. Sometimes, friends would just keep things from me – things I needed to know – and that hurt too. I didn’t want anyone to be hurt like that. When it’s okay to hold back information and when it’s okay not to is another discussion.

“I was always taught by my mother that the first thought that goes through your mind is what you have been conditioned to think. What you think next defines who you are,” read a post on Tumblr’s Facebook page at the start of my sophomore year at Northwestern University in Qatar.

That clicked and got me thinking: Every first thought we have should go through our conscience to be corrected – to change into something better – before it comes out of our mouths or stays in our heads to rot.

One day as I took the Qatar Foundation bus from the dorms to NU-Qatar, a girl in the bus wore heart-shaped golden-rimmed sunglasses. My first thought was, “Why would someone wear something as tacky as that?” But my immediate second thought was, “So what? If that’s what she wants to wear – if that’s what makes her happy – then that’s all that matters.”

Plus, what might be elegant to me could be tacky to anyone else. My perception of elegance is my truth, and nobody should have to deal with my version of the truth when there’s no one thing that’s true.

One morning, as I was working at the front desk at Al Majlis Al Shamali, the female residence halls, a friend asked me to come out from behind the desk like she wanted to confide something in me.

“Do I look like a slut?” she asked.

“No, you look fine!” I told her.

I didn’t like the black stockings on her, but that’s not what I told her. She had two important meetings that she wanted to look professional for. As she waited for the bus to university, she fidgeted and fumbled with her dress.

“Don’t do that. Just be confident,” I told her.

Because if you can be confident, you’re going to love the way you look anyway. My opinion doesn’t matter. You matter. What you want matters.

Ask.fm is the prime social networking site where snap judgments are thrown at people all the time – where people’s first thoughts never pass through their consciences and retain their stagnant smell. I received one such “question.”

“There’s a place and a time for everything. Skipping and swirling around EC (Education City) with your headphones on … You’re in college. Grow up,”‬‬ the anonymous questioner wrote.

“This is college, and you still haven’t learned how to accept someone’s individuality, have you?” I replied. “I will skip and swirl all I want, because that makes me happy. I probably smile more than you do; I probably love and care more. I hug strangers if I see them crying. I spread joy and I make people smile. And I skip and swirl as I do that. Because this life is too short to not skip and swirl. And that’s growing up – learning how to skip and swirl through life.”

So post that gooey photo of yourself with your girlfriend or boyfriend on Facebook – if that’s what you want, if that’s what makes you happy. Shine in those black stockings and wear those heart-shaped golden-rimmed sunglasses like there’s no tomorrow. Skip and swirl through life’s eccentricity.

Rhytha Zahid Hejaze is a sophomore studying journalism at NU-Qatar. She can be reached at [email protected]. If you would like to respond publicly to this column, send a Letter to the Editor to [email protected].