as of late...with turning 26 and with changing everything i know...i've come to admit one harsh criticism of myself.
i have been a coward in my personal life.
i think back at everything i have ever done and i realize that far too often i had let others opinions, feelings and desires to come before mine - never truly standing up for the things i believed in, letting circumstances dictate destiny.
nowadays, i am trying to make ammends to myself and to those who beared the brunt of my cowardice.
i'm realizing now that i have lived so much of my life around other people and what they wanted or expected.
i'm ready to embrace the future now and facing so many of the consequences of my own failure to just do and say what i felt and wanted.
it's a funny thing to grow older.
recently i had been present at a dinner where there were adults and teenagers struggling with learning their place and pecking order in societal hierarchy. one remark by one adult stuck out, he said you know high school is tough, being a kid is tough - you learn your place.
in my own self reflection i realize that far too often i've let others determine my life and happiness.
how do i please this person or this group of people. what willl they think of me. even my actions were pre-determined by what others thought of me. i realize now that though this might in a traditional culture be seen as courageous and noble...that it really doesn't serve anyone any justice in the end. in the aim to please or assimilate, in the dire hope for approval by peers, parents, society...all my efforts of trying to do the right thing by others has in actuality done more damage to my own person and to the people that should have really been treated with more fairness in my life. a very wise friend once told me that it was useless to worry about what anyone else thinks. i wish i had let go of the railing and realized that he was right...in life it is important to just live by yourself. as my dad would say it...in the end you only have one person to answer to and live with...your self. other people are not your responsibility and you cannot do anything about how they feel or act towards anything or anyone....but you do have control over yourself and you should really take care of yourself first because no one else will.
i have lived my life as a people pleasing coward and for the first time i am going to live my life by me and hopefully make ammends to people i have unjustly hurt in my naive obedience to others' expectations and wishes. to everyone who has suffered from my cowardice...i apologize from the bottom of my heart and to everyone who has taken advantage of my cowardice for their benefit shamelessly. i ask you to look at yourself as well and learn to not have others carry the burden of being responsible for your selfish means and to prey so righteously on the less experienced at being self absorbed. this letter is both an apology and a warning. don't take me as a fool anymore. it will not be tolerated.
after 26 years of living on this wretched planet, i commit to being my own person and i am going to embrace the consequences and hopefully the rewards of confronting my demons. past, present and future.
my new years resolution, after two years of not really being able to find one of any merit and meaning, is to truly treat myself better - to stop worrying so much about others because seriously, i have one life to live, i can't waste it worrying about how others are doing or what others think and expect - it's not like it's going to be reciprocated in kind anyways. i want to live my own life, the way i want and not always at the mercy of worrying what others want, expect or think.
i deserve to be better treated by myself and by others. we all do.
and i am going to start living my life by me.
AND what better way to start than being inspired by Lent!!!
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