I'm a bad person.

I have this thought at least once a day, maybe more if the wind is blowing in the right direction.

I'm a bad person...

If I'm influenced or things in my life aren't going exactly as planned or I forget and eat meat on Fridays during Lent.

I'm a bad person.

Here's the thing about negative thoughts like this. This idea, this negative connotation that I cast upon myself... It doesn't just tell me who I am. It tells me what I am. What I am, I know deep down, is not a bad person, despite what I constantly tell myself, and despite what other people lead me to believe— not by their words, but by their actions.

I'm reaching out to those of you who think this thought constantly like I do. This one is for you. Like me, you know that you aren't inherently bad, but you don't know if you're that great, either. You try your hardest to be the best that you can be for yourself and others. For some reason, that just isn't enough. You don't know why people act the way they do around you sometimes, like you haven't done anything for them— as if the world revolves around them and nothing more. Then, you think, "I'm a bad person for thinking that," and the whole sordid cycle starts all over again.

Listen, and learn from what I have to say. You may save yourself from pain that I have continued to subject myself to. We are not bad people. We are simply stuck in a world of people who cannot and will not appreciate our worths and what we have to give. It has taken me so long to understand and realize that my worth is much more important than constantly giving my time to people who don't care about the time that I give back to them. I may not be the best person on the planet, but I'm certainly not the worst.

I'm a bad person for believing the things that I think people say about me, even when they don't actually say them. Never assume someone is saying something about you when they're really not. It ruins potential connections that you can make with people and adds an extra burden to your life that you don't want to carry with you.

In the end, I may have this thought, but it is absolutely not true and that's the thought that follows closely behind. I'm a bad person, but I'm not. As long as we affirm to ourselves that this is absolutely not true, we will be okay. We are and can prove that we as people are so much more than the short straws that we give to ourselves. Never doubt your self-worth and never let others doubt it either. We are good, decent human beings and, as long as we know this about ourselves, everything will be just fine.