I was walking to the crosstown bus I took to school in sixth grade listening to my older brother’s rap and hip-hop playlist when the song “That Power” by Childish Gambino came on. If the words “I never got off the bus” mean nothing to you, then I strongly recommend listening to the entire song before you continue reading.

The actual song is great — of course it is — Gambino is a lyrical genius. But, the outro monologue is the part that really changed the course of my life.

Towards the end, when the violin starts to get really fast, Gambino says, “I learned cut out the middle man, make it all for everybody, always. Everybody can’t turn around and tell everybody, everybody already knows, I told them.”

Make it all for everybody, always.

When I heard that, my prepubescent brain all but exploded. I’ve been chasing that massive of an epiphany ever since.

Life is so much easier when you don’t have secrets, or, at the very least, you don’t have things you told your friends they could possibly share with others that you don’t want them to.

If you tell someone you have feelings for them, it’s a no-brainer that they will tell, at minimum, three friends. That’s being extremely conservative. Ergo, in some ways, texting someone asking them out is the equivalent of publicly professing your love for them.

It’s something now embedded in my subconscious. I treat all of my confessions, even the most private ones, as if they were public.

This also goes for gossip. Most people will tell someone, maybe even the subject of the gossip, everything you said to them. On that note, I think telling your friends mean things you overhear about them is kind of sadistic.

Anyway, my life is definitely more peaceful post-revelation. I still have those thoughts of social exchanges that rear their ugly head when I try to go to bed at night, but at the very least, they’re never worries of some big secret coming out.

That’s not to say everyone I’ve ever crossed paths with knows every detail about my life, just that, for the most part, if I’m not okay with everybody in a specific social circle knowing something, I don’t tell anyone. It’s all for everybody, always.

I don’t have that much of a filter though, so for me making it all for everybody, always also means publishing my thoughts once a week and then posting about it on social media. To each her own?

And to think this all came to me at the tender age of twelve, waiting for the bus. You’ll never believe it — I, also, never got off the bus.

Sylvie Slotkin is a Medill sophomore. She can be contacted at sylvieslotkin2027@u.northwestern.edu. If you would like to respond publicly to this op-ed, send a Letter to the Editor to opinion@dailynorthwestern.com. The views expressed in this piece do not necessarily reflect the views of all staff members of The Daily Northwestern.