I often come away from a social interaction and think “I feel like they are mad/irritated/annoyed by me” and then this thought lives in my mind for at least the next hour up to a few days. This never feels good or helpful. So, I’ve had an epiphany. I should start saying “Anything I think I did wrong was just ME being ME.” It was just me being myself! I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone or be inconsiderate.
Anytime I consider my actions wrong or right, what I’m really doing is trying to adjust and bend to who people want me to be. Then, I have to remember I’m not trying to be a carbon copy, and if the interaction happened between a person I felt safe with, I would have never thought I did something wrong in the first place!
One thing I tell kids at school all the time is they need to consider if a person is a match for them. If they are not, it’s okay and you have to move on because bending over backwards to make a person like you is just you turning into a different person and we need the person they were meant to be, not the person they think others want them to be. Someone else out there needs you to be who you were meant to be too so they can find THEIR match.
I am kind and empathetic and I don’t spend hours judging others or thinking about something they did that bothered me, and if I did, it’s because they are not a match for me anyway. This is the sign to move on and expend my energy elsewhere.
It’s really wild how much time I’ve internalized hypothetical narratives. I will go over an interaction from multiple possible perceptions of the other person so thoroughly, I’ll convince myself that I should go back in time and fix it. At the same time, my logical self knows if I were to apologize it would be completely out of line with reality. It would certainly evoke a look of bewilderment from the person with which I have been exchanging hypothetical scenarios all day where the setting was my mind.
When googling or reading why human beings tend to overthink things like this, a common answer seems to always surface- a need to survive. I’ve read a lot that says human beings are driven to connect, to build a community. Maybe this explains why we end up caring so much. It used to be a necessary survival tactic-do I fit in enough to secure care if I need something later? However, the world is now so populated, it seems we have more choice in the matter and more leeway in which connections we bridge and which ones we burn. But that need to connect for survival still tries to overwrite the knowledge that we have a choice now.
This point makes me glad I am living in this century-one where we are often applauded for being ourselves and if not from one group of people, then most certainly another is around the corner waiting for us to arrive. Even in my lifetime, I often felt like I was trapped to walk a prefabricated path not of my own making, so I couldn’t imagine feeling like I was entirely susceptible to a path with absolutely no opportunity to be myself except the limitations of my own mind. Thinking about the many in that position for years makes me feel sad and grateful for the opportunities to lead a more authentic life in this time period.
I thank all the brave disruptors of the norm, desecrating one path of being. You have created options that speak to so many. I only wish that I had realized that I did not need to conform to connect much earlier. Now, I feel like there are instances where I am myself more genuinely or where I respond or create in ways I would not have previously, and I am proud. They say as you get older, you find yourself, but all it really entails is unlearning what you thought you needed to do to survive and realizing there are options to survival now even if they were always there your whole life.
I hope my kids and the younger generations feel comfortable being themselves and know that the majority of actions they take part in are, in no way, wrong. If they are able to say they are kind and considerate, that should be the only measure for which to judge any actions. I hope they never have to consider societal expectations and judgements and grow up in a world knowing there is a group of matches for everyone and their interests and most importantly, that they are well aware of this fact.
Squeezing yourself into a box of outside perceptions and judgements is not helpful for self-esteem. The freedom to flourish is the opposite. When thinking of those words, “squeeze” or “flourish”, which sounds more comfortable and freeing? Which sounds more authentic? I, for one, choose to flourish while I survive this wild, precious life and I hope you do too.
onthecontrarykelly 