"They can say, anything they want to say
Try to break me down
But I won't face the ground
I will rise steadily
Sailing out of their reach
They do try hard to make me feel
That I don't matter at all
But I refuse to falter in what I believe
Or lose faith in my dreams
'Cause there's a light in me
That shines brightly
They can try
But they can't take that away from me"
(Carey, 1999)
There are many times in life where you wonder, "What happened?" and "Where do I go from here." There really only seems to be one answer to those questions; Life happened, and you move on. People come and go in and out of your life, sometimes they hurt you on accident, and sometimes they do it on purpose. But, ultimately we all have a shared goal, and that is to make the most of this little bit of time on the planet that we are allotted.
Maybe love doesn't usually last, and friends are typically not forever, but that doesn't have to take away from the bigger picture. So often I will lose a lover or a friend and just be devastated and inconsolable for a period of time. Now I'm thinking that instead of shutting down and trying to repair after I can function again, I need to make the effort to gather the good, be it memories or life lessons, that I have received from that person, put the positive energy of wishing them well into the universe, and then move forward.
Internalizing things to death is a huge flaw of mine, and one that I have realized I need to focus on fixing. A friend of mine, who has confidence beyond my comprehension, was advising me on how she does it. "I know my abilities and worth," she said, "and I simply don't care what anyone else thinks, because it is the human condition to want to make other people feel bad to make oneself feels better, and I just won't let them tear me down to give themselves some ironic feeling of worth." Whether that is accurate or not, the most important thing I took away from it is that I do need to know my own worth, and then hold firm and not let anyone shake that. I do have goals, I do have dreams, and I work towards them everyday. Maybe my progress has been slower than others, and maybe my goals are ridiculous to others, but why does that matter? They are MY goals, not theirs.
And so that is going to be my focus; to keep in the headlights my goals and damn the naysayers. I am not going to let them get me down, and I am simply just not going to listen. If confronted, I will smile, thank them for their opinion, and walk away and immediately empty the trash in my brain. I haven't made it this far by giving in, and I certainly know how to stand up and brush off my knees.
~Jen
