Saturday, June 28, 2008

Introduction: my search to a better me

Hey readers,

These columns are about things a 23 years old girl struggles with through her life. It's about discovering new things about life and yourself as you grow. Things that you never thought about it before or that you just start seeing in a different light. It's about my road to finding ME or hopefully an improved me.

Older people say that your twenties are about finding yourself and mistakes have to be made in order to get closer to the one correct way. I wonder whether in my fourties I can say that the road and the pace I have decided to take has led me to where I want to go or was destined to go. Till this day I dream that I will, although I have to confess it is not always easy.........

I am an aspiring writer who finds writing soothing. I hope you enjoy my columns. Please be free to leave a comment or any recommendations. Please pass the word about my columins to someone you think that will find my writing interesting.

A striver,

.........striving to have the confidence to be the dream Me.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

Intolerance

When I was a kid and an early teenager I hated those kids that simply couldn’t or didn’t want to be nice. You know those people that have to give you that impatience face or some comments about your lack of skills or about your not-so-nice outfit? I’m sure everybody remembers at least one of those persons, even when it was you the one doing it to other people.
I always considered myself different from those people. I thought of myself as a nice person that would stand up for the ‘unfortunates’. Maybe it has to do with me being one of those unfortunates, but I would like to think that even if I were one of the ‘lucky’ gals I would still be a nice person.
It seemed so easy back then. I would still like to think of myself a ‘good’ person, whatever that actually means, but man it is hard to be tolerant and not judgmental!
Let me tell you what I found myself being the most intolerant about. As you grow up you go through so many things, and you learn how to get stronger. Well at least that was my case. I consider myself someone who always looks for ways of improving myself, as a human being, friend and professional. This is essentially for my self and because I don’t want to get comments or faces from those ‘intolerant’ people. I do understand that some people are stronger than others, but man I do not understand people that do not want to do anything to improve their lives, and the only thing they do is complain (even when it’s to themselves) and do nothing about it. Growth is not easy and it is difficult. I have cried many times but it has only made my stronger, as cliché as it may sounds. People that cannot benefit from those painful situations and make something good out of it makes me scream!! and it makes me one of those ‘intolerant’ people that I hated and didn’t want to become. It is hard for me not to judge these people.
This was only one example of what drives me nuts in people and I’m sure everybody has their own or many things that drives them nuts. I realized that the older I get the more intolerant and judgmental I become. I’m not sure whether it has to do with me or with the fact that I’m meeting more and more different kind of people and the fact that I think to know people better.
I doubt that many people will disagree with me when I say that intolerance is a bad thing. Intolerance has been the cause of many wars, problems and pain in this world. And it is an undeniable and something inevitable in every being human, in one more than the other. However let us all try to accept that differences in opinion, lifestyles and characteristics and characters exists, and that difference is OK. Let’s try to see these differences without being judgmental. I know it is hard, but I will try not to become someone I dislike.

High school friends

After a day out with a friend from high school I came back home and started asking myself why the hell am I still friends with her. Every time we go out together, there is something that bothers me about her. I have a feeling this is mutual, but somehow no one says anything about it and we just keep pretending. Or am I the one expecting too much from friendships. I understand that it cannot be fun all the time and that no one is perfect. It is difficult to find that click 100% of the time. I am not asking for a soul mate but shouldn’t the fun moments out-weight the bad moments. Every time again and again I remember the bad stuff more than the fun stuff. Is this a sign? I ask myself should we start scrabbling some people from our friend list? Is it worth it to keep putting effort in continuing the friendship or is it time to move the ‘friend’ to the ‘acquaintance’ list and just meet on the very but very special occasions?
There is no doubt in my mind that a friendship as any other relationships is like an investment. You have to put something into it, time and energy to get something out of it, otherwise it will fade away sooner then you may think, especially now as grownups in this busy society. Everybody is having their own lives, meeting new people and living miles away from each other.
I just realized how easy friendships were in school. We will just meet everyday, talk about what happened yesterday; go through most of the day together without having to check our diaries first. It’s even hard now in college, with everybody having different classes and schedules. It’s so much harder to make true friends now. There is hardly someone you get to see that often in order to create that undeniable bond that only spending nonsense time with each other creates. It is this bond that makes it so difficult for me to say goodbye. From now on it will be difficult to make friends as my high school friends. Friends that know you from a long time ago and that have been there with you during the critical process called growing up. They have been there during those very memorable moments that you will always remember, that first kiss, your first boyfriend, those mean girls at school. It is stupid to say that those friends will not always have a role in the person I’ve become and will become. They will always have a special place in my heart and memory.
But we all have changed a lot. We have all gone through different paths. Even though you would like to hold on to those old times, you cannot help noticing that times have simply changed.
Is it time for us just to face and accept the fact that we have grown apart. Letting go and saying goodbye is probably the most difficult thing to do in any relationship in which you have gone through so many things together. But it is probably something necessary to keep going on.

Social situations and self- acceptance

Social situations and self- acceptance

Do you find it difficult to approach people? Well I do. I have never been very comfortable with strangers or large groups of people. I realized in my freshman year that I have a lack of social skills. I wish I were one of those social butterflies. You know, those people that always know their ways into a group. I have often been the outsider of any group I have been in. I find it very hard to keep a conversation or making an impression on people and when I try it always seems to be silly words that come out of my mouth. Well it could be too that I’m too conscious on what people think of me, while they probably haven’t even given me a thought.
I have decided to do something about it. I have accepted my deficiency in this area and many others. I’m not as beautiful or intelligent or funny as I wish I were. Believe me this was not easy; it took me some time, and many not- so- great moments for me to finally reach this point of acceptance. I have told myself many times; “That’s the way I am and that’s it.” But I REFUSE to do nothing about it. I’ve decided to go out of my comfort zone as much as possible, and be voluntarily put in those awkward situations where you do not always have a friend to turn to and avoid giving the impression of the poor lonely person. I realized that if I ever want to be that person I have to be put in many more of these awkward situations, and stop worrying about what people think about you.
Have you ever realized that very confident people are those that just do their thing and are not afraid of making a fool of them selves? This is because they are at ease with themselves and they know who they are and they don't feel like they have to prove anything to others and they are not constantly conscious on whether people will like them or not.
I have decided to work on the person I hope I become someday. Notice, I DO NOT want to change, but I want to improve and develop myself. I have accepted the person I am but I REFUSE to make my acceptance a wall for improvement. Accepting myself is just one of the many steps of the stair that I will have to take.
My next step is to stop my fear of what people think of me. This fear restricted me from approaching people and opening my mouth and to go out there.
“ I do not care whether I seem silly or not. I do not care whether they will find me interesting or not. I do not care whether I’m rejected or not.” These are my words of encouragement every time I’m in one of those social awkward moments. I hope that one day I will reach this step in order to go one step further in this process of growing up.

To work for perfection?

I just got a 6 today for an assignment that I thought I did quite well. Well… apparently not! Looking at the other grades the teacher gave to the other students, I ended feeling like I was not good enough for anything. I know this is like only one grade for an assignment that I didn’t really worked that hard for after all (an excuse for me not to accept that I simply was not capable of doing a good job). I guess the worst thing was that the really high grades were from people I knew. And then comes what we all do, we compare ourselves to the people around us.
My astrological sign is Virgo, so according to it, I’m really critical about everything, especially of my self. I’m sure there are many people like me. You know you cannot be perfect and you keep telling yourself that, especially during those times when things didn’t turned out the way you wanted. You know those situations where one of the people at your work for example doesn’t like you that much. You keep telling yourself: ‘ well it’s impossible for everybody to like you. If you like me great, if you don’t, hey that’s me, I cannot change anyway’. You keep telling yourself that kind of stuff but deep down you do want everybody to like you, and to respect you, to think you are funny, great, and nice. You keep striving for perfection. You want to be one of those people that have everything. An A-student a great social life with a great boyfriend, a resume full of achievements and they somehow still manage to look wonderful and just radiate happiness. That’s what society and I admire. That’s what perfection is in society’s eyes. And you want to be that person, because somehow you were brained washed by society’s view.
Let me explain what I mean by brained washed. Society makes you believe that that’s what you want to be, while it is not what you really want. What you really want is to be perfect in the eyes of others. Well maybe we do not want to be perfect, but we do want others to think highly of ourselves, or what is worst is that we need to think highly of ourselves in order to be satisfied and happy with ourselves. And in order to achieve that you need to fit into their ‘perfection’ box description.
All what I want is actually nothing. I just want to have an easy lazy life. Go out with my friends, watch my favorite shows and go traveling. I do not really want to be this perfect student, have this great career and save the world. But if I stick to those things that I want, I will feel worthless. Society says that accomplishments are good! That’s why I work my ass of everyday studying, working to achieve these accomplishments that I do not really REALLY want. So I concluded for myself that I will not be happy if I work towards these achievements, let’s face it, nobody wants to work their butt off 12 hours a day. So the choice is easy right? Just live that lazy life you want, but NO, my self-destructive critical side has to come out. If I don’t get some of those achievements I won’t be happy either. I would pity myself the whole day and keep feeling inferior to others. Not that I don’t do that now even with all my ‘achievements’. I work my butt off every day even to be more perfect.
The worst thing is that you will never be totally happy even when you have reached perfection, because there will be always someone better than you, more beautiful, and more intelligent than you. But if you give up the fight for perfection and live that easy life you want, you won’t feel fulfilled. It’s a no-way- good end dilemma. Well yeah no body said that happiness was easy. Let’s hope that I’ll find happiness and satisfaction in my journey to myself and laugh about this article in 10 years.