2020… The year of COVID-19, stay home, Zoom, quarantine, work from home, everything cancelled, masks and the like.
It honestly hasn't been the best year for me and there have been a lot of points when I felt drained, hopeless and inadequate, but these reminders really keep me going and moving forward and are like light in a dark tunnel.
Self-Worth
A lot of things that don’t define our self-worth, are things that we think defines it.
The thought of wishing that things had turned out differently is no stranger to me. For many years of my life, I felt like a misfit and wished that I had a better experience in certain phases of my life, because for the vast majority of people, their closest friends were made from those phases of life, while for me, I didn’t have a lot of good friends from those times. One of the times was secondary school, when I felt outcast by many people. Seeing my friends hanging out with their other friends on social media would overwhelm me with FOMO (not their fault, but just the way I feel when I open social media. And yes, I do acknowledge that I could be unintentionally giving others FOMO when I post.)
The list goes on. I guess a lot of this feeling of inadequacy stems from insecurities I’ve struggled with and those I still struggle with today. Many things that might seem small, like even hearing others’ stories, might actually be a trigger for my insecurities and make me feel bad about a lot of things.
Thankfully, I’ve made quite a few realisations that have helped me a lot. One of them is that our past doesn’t define our self-worth, and neither does how many followers we have on social media, how many friends we have or how popular we are.
Many people say that you have to love yourself first before others can love you, but I beg to differ. In my case, being loved by others was my inspiration for me to love myself. I realised that many people actually think I am good as I am, and they were there for me in my darkest times. They even offered messages of encouragement and affirmed me of a lot of positive qualities that I had. As such, I thought to myself that not loving myself wouldn’t do justice to all the kindness that others have shown me.
One incident that struck me was when I realised that I wasn’t as inferior as I thought I was. I was chatting with one of my cousins on text and we brought up the point that, realistically speaking, most of the people in my life wouldn’t think of me as inferior, and if they did, there are only two possibilities - either they don’t know me well enough, or they don’t deserve to be in my life. As such, I started thinking about what others would say if someone asked them if they thought I was inferior, and arrived at the conclusion that most of the people I know would definitely say no. Many would probably even be shocked if someone would have the audacity to ask such a question. I’m not saying that I am superior to others, but I’m saying that I’m not as lousy as I think I am and that many people actually think quite well of me.
Life is a Journey
Another thing I realised is that life is a journey and not a competition. Everyone is unique in their own way, and while similarities are important for common ground, more in common isn’t necessarily a good thing. If you want everything in common, just be clones of each other. For a long time, I was ashamed of my life story and quirks and afraid to show them to others, and the baggage I held came with the limiting belief that no one would accept me for who I am unless I changed who I was. Thankfully, I realised that this perception that I had isn't true.
In my opinion, it’s more important to show our “not-so-good” side than our good side to others because it shows who deserves to be in our lives and who doesn’t. I’m slowly learning to appreciate my life story and the way it went. Everyone has a story and that’s what makes each and every person unique and interesting. If everyone had the same story, I can’t imagine what a boring place the world would be today!
Ironically, the flaws we have in life and the differences we have are criminally underrated. They allow us to have room for improvement and areas for us to work on. It’s also something that unites - everyone’s struggles are different, but the fact that we all go through struggles can unite us. It is also worth noting that no one has it all figured out and everyone, regardless of how shiny things appear for them on social media or from what we see, there is something that everyone is not so satisfied with and there will always be feelings of yearning for more.
At the end of the day, while having such feelings is a completely valid and human reaction, we must remember that these things don’t determine our self-worth and that life isn’t about getting more friends or one-upping others, but it is about creating a journey and story of our own that is unique and inspiring.
Good or Bad? Who Knows?
We always tend to classify things as good or bad, but what if good is bad and bad is good?
If that sounds too complex, something that is desirable may not be as desirable as it seems, and vice versa.
One of my touching points with this was reading a book called The Upside of Your Dark Side by Robert Biswas-Diener and Todd Kashdan, which highlighted the positive impact of negative emotions. I don’t remember everything, but one of the main points was that negative emotions are actually important and we need them for the whole human experience.
I’ve always been tired of toxic positivity, where people think that being positive is important all the time, even when the situation doesn’t allow for it. “Just think positive” is honestly one of the worst pieces of advice I’ve ever heard, because it doesn’t acknowledge one’s negative feelings and feelings aren’t like a switch; we can’t turn them on and off as and when we like. Even a switch has two options for a reason: we need the light to see and we need the dark when it’s time for us to sleep.
I actually realised that the bitter experiences I experienced in life have been quite helpful in allowing myself to appreciate what I have now and empathise with others who have undergone such experiences better. It is also what makes my life story unique as an individual and what has moulded me into who I am today. Around my 20th birthday, I started looking back on those experiences about 5 years ago and realised how much I’ve grown as a person. I realised that I am a lot better now than I was back then, in the sense I’m a lot more confident, secure and humorous.
The Importance of Failure
Thomas Edison’s famous quote, “I have not failed, I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work” is one of the biggest inspirations and motivators for me today.
10,000 failures are a lot! Even one or two failures can be bad enough to discourage us and tear us down, but it’s only through failure and making mistakes that we can bounce back and find the right way to do things. It is amazing that he was so persistent despite all the setbacks and, had he given up, we wouldn’t have light bulbs today and would probably still be relying on fire and candles.
I used to be ashamed of a lot of past mistakes and failures I made. Some of the things included excessively posting on social media (particularly Snapchat) due to a lot of insecurities I had, rushing to have deep conversations too fast without getting to know them and having a mindset that I had to look like I had it all figured out. However, now that I can see much more clearly now, I realised that these mistakes allowed me to find out what I didn’t do so right and experiencing it first-hand has honestly been the best way to learn from them.
I still worry a lot about my future and social life in a few years down the road, but I prefer to see making these mistakes as a cause for optimism rather than pessimism. Without making them, I wouldn’t even start and know what is right. Say maybe you want to bake a cake but you don’t know the ideal oven temperature, but you don’t even dare to start because you’re so scared of getting the wrong temperature. At the end of the day, you won’t be able to have your cake at all, but if you get it wrong the first time but rectify it, you can get it after a few tries because you know whether it's too hot or cold and can adjust it accordingly.
Constructive vs Destructive Emotions
Moving on to the next point, the struggles we face are a matter of the past two points. The negative emotions we face can either help or hurt, depending on our approach.
First and foremost, there’s this approach where we start ruminating over the negative emotions and keep beating ourselves up for it. We keep thinking things like “why did I do this?”, “things will never work out” or “I’m such a lousy person”.
The end result? We end up feeling way worse than before and nothing gets done.
How about this approach instead? Why not think about how we can do better in future to get around this negative incident or emotion? Maybe a football team lost a match heavily and are really disheartened, so they reflect on themselves and figure out how not to lose the match in such a fashion again. Maybe that was the case when Liverpool got defeated by Tottenham 4-1 back in 2017, which was a crucial point in turning the club around by getting the players to rectify their defensive mistakes and for the board to target players who proved crucial to the club (and I hope a similar story happens from now since they lost 7-2 to Aston Villa a couple of weeks back… SIGH).
Thus, while it is very normal and a natural human reaction to ruminate, doing so doesn't get us anywhere. Instead, thinking about how we can make things better and actually doing something that can make things better is what will work. Constructive emotions are the ones that turn into action.
Conclusion
There are actually more lessons I’ve learnt this year and over the course of my life journey, which will be brought up in the second part. Some are important reminders, while others are new lessons. Regardless of the type of lesson I’ve learnt, the most important thing in life is to keep moving forward and growing. My growth journey hasn’t been a smooth one, but I am striving to make it one that I want to look back on, smile and think to myself about how far I’ve come as a person.
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