Confidence
As someone who feels sufficiently overwhelmed at times from everyone's success and my seeming lack of it, I also feel that it is so overwhelmingly important to realize you cannot and should not compare yourself. To anyone. Ever. It is so essential to our happiness to realize, no matter how corny it is to say, that you are unique and special and one of a kind. You can offer something to the world that no one else can and that's you. Unfortunately, from a very early age, we are taught to compare ourselves, to compete and to look at the other person and size up our strengths and weaknesses against theirs. Our clay formations are made fun of in kindergarten and our bad outfit choices are ridiculed up into middle school and so by the time we reach high school or adulthood we have lost a lot of confidence in ourselves and our abilities. This is a shame, and I don't know about you but I'm not totally comfortable with letting it continue.
We are essentially educating our children out of creative confidence. We need to instill a new sense of self-worth. We need to make the idea of trying at all, at anything, seem more appealing and less terrifying because the truth is even if you don't try, you take the safe route, you take the safe job or you do exactly as the book says, bad things can happen. So you might as well try at the thing that makes you happy, try at the thing you are passionate about. We have only a finite number of days here on earth. We have to make the best of it. We have to try as many things as humanly possible, despite the fear of failure or judgement, because truthfully those are inevitable, but for the mere chance to say I did it, I tried, and now I have a story to tell. However, education systems, teachers and parents constantly remind us that failing, making a mistake is the worst thing we could possibly do and that couldn't be more untrue. Mistakes are when we learn most. Mistakes are when we have the opportunity to grow stronger and wiser. And it's unfortunate because this perspective is hurting us on a creative level, on an economic level, and individually and as a society. I think we're limiting ourselves to thinking that only math and english and history and science are the only important classes we should be teaching. When things like self-love, confidence and a healthy lifestyle are everyday struggles for so many people. I think we need to teach and encourage people to have a positive attitude because that in itself will take you very far. Despite the situation at hand you can almost always fake it till you make it... or as my communications professor tells me "fake it till you become it." Most importantly know that you are in charge of how you feel about yourself, maybe not what happens to you, and unfortunately not how other people act but definitely how you act, how you feel and your attitude. Your confidence and your acceptance of who you are is your responsibility and your happiness can only be determined by you.
If you happen to be going through something rather tough at the moment, a hardship, or difficult decision just know that good things can come from bad things too. Life is not just black and white, there is a lot of grey, and there is at least two sides, if not more, to every story. See everything in life with a dual perspective. The good on one side and the bad on the other. Enjoy moments. Give yourself credit. Have confidence in everything you do. And be happy.
