Lately, I’ve been noticing how I communicate with others around me, and I’ve found myself stopping to mentally slap myself for the way I respond to people. Like I’m a robot or a product of entertainment, I find myself fearful of everything I say. I’ve become fearful of many things lately, from talking to classmates, ordering food, trying to fix an issue, or even talking to a pretty girl on a date. They all leave me wondering what else I could’ve done, other than what I had. I think part of this torturous adulting comes with finding the positives and negatives in your actions. The matter of finding balance is where I tend to get lost.
People watching is a big hobby of mine, and most of the time I end up comparing random strangers to myself and my own actions. I begin to go down the path of judging my own actions on a day-to-day basis. At this time in our lives, solutions to the problem are often rare and not worth searching for, especially if you can’t understand the problem itself. This can come from past experiences or traumas we have held back from others, who we think might not be able to understand.
Personally, I find my negative attributes whenever I get the opposite of the goal that I set out for. I can’t help but be upset by something that usually can’t be controlled. Instead of getting upset with myself, I’ve started taking the chance to celebrate my differences. Even if there is no celebration to be desired, beating yourself up over something that won’t matter a week from now is not the move.
We should be open about the things we aren’t sure about. We need to be honest about what we feel and how the things that others do affect us. The fear to be different is there, and it probably won’t go away as fast as we would like it to, but fear is what keeps us going day-to-day. Fear keeps us from saying things we really shouldn’t or doing things that won’t get us any further than to the nearest hospital. When it comes to living your life true to yourself, you shouldn’t be afraid of showing off to the world.