• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Advertising
  • Join PGM
Pepperdine Graphic

Pepperdine Graphic

  • News
    • Good News
  • Sports
    • Hot Shots
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
    • Advice Column
    • Waves Comic
  • GNews
    • Staff Spotlights
    • First and Foremost
    • Allgood Food
    • Pepp in Your Step
    • DunnCensored
    • Beyond the Statistics
  • Special Publications
    • 5 Years In
    • L.A. County Fires
    • Change in Sports
    • Solutions Journalism: Climate Anxiety
    • Common Threads
    • Art Edition
    • Peace Through Music
    • Climate Change
    • Everybody Has One
    • If It Bleeds
    • By the Numbers
    • LGBTQ+ Edition: We Are All Human
    • Where We Stand: One Year Later
    • In the Midst of Tragedy
  • Currents
    • Currents Spring 2025
    • Currents Fall 2024
    • Currents Spring 2024
    • Currents Winter 2024
    • Currents Spring 2023
    • Currents Fall 2022
    • Spring 2022: Moments
    • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
    • Spring 2021: Beauty From Ashes
    • Fall 2020: Humans of Pepperdine
    • Spring 2020: Everyday Feminism
    • Fall 2019: Challenging Perceptions of Light & Dark
  • Podcasts
    • On the Other Hand
    • RE: Connect
    • Small Studio Sessions
    • SportsWaves
    • The Graph
    • The Melanated Muckraker
  • Print Editions
  • NewsWaves
  • Sponsored Content
  • Digital Deliveries
  • DPS Crime Logs

Embracing the Bad

February 11, 2019 by Mary Cate Long

When you were a kid, did you ever play the classic “keep the beach ball underwater” game?

I did. For some reason it was such an irresistible yet impossible challenge: to fully submerge this bloated, flashy ball under the water for as long as possible.

I would jump onto it from the diving board, try to balance my weight sitting on it or perhaps attack by swimming below, attempting to drag it down into the pool’s depths.

Despite my valiant and strangely determined efforts, I never was successful for long. After all, a beach ball is a beach ball and the one thing they do best is buoyancy.

A little bit older now, I still play the beach ball game, but in a much different (and less fun) way. I am generally a both positive and busy person, which results in a tendency to stuff negative feelings beneath the surface. I don’t think I’m the only one either.

At Pepperdine, there is an overabundance of sunshine and schedules. Driven, pretty people flutter around campus talking about the internship they just landed or maybe their modeling gig in Hawaii last weekend. Many people here are actually really kind, as well as driven and attractive. But behind the flawless resumes and white smiles, every person has less-than-Malibu-perfect emotions and situations.

I think a lot of us try to stuff these things down because we either don’t have time to deal with the bad things, or maybe because we are too scared. However, not one of us has the capacity to indefinitely ignore the negative aspects of life. The harder you fight to keep them down, the more violently they break through the surface.

Thankfully, I learned a valuable lesson in my childhood pool game days that I can share with you now: the only way to truly win the beach ball game is to let the ball float to the surface, hold it in your hands for a moment and, when you’re ready, let it drift away. The sun will wither it without any help from you, if you give it a chance.

__________________

Follow Mary Cate Long on Twitter: @journ_marycate

Filed Under: Perspectives Tagged With: A2 column, beach ball, cathartic, embrace, emotions, Mary Cate Long, negative, pepperdine, positive, underwater, water

Primary Sidebar

Categories

  • Featured
  • News
  • Life & Arts
  • Perspectives
  • Sports
  • Podcasts
  • G News
  • COVID-19
  • Fall 2021: Global Citizenship
  • Everybody Has One
  • Newsletters

Footer

Pepperdine Graphic Media
Copyright © 2025 · Pepperdine Graphic

Contact Us

Advertising
(310) 506-4318
peppgraphicadvertising@gmail.com

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
(310) 506-4311
peppgraphicmedia@gmail.com
Student Publications
Pepperdine University
24255 Pacific Coast Hwy
Malibu, CA 90263
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube