One year ago,
Black Coffee? Too strong for me, I’ll pass, thanks.
Politics? Too controversial for me, I’ll pass, thanks.
Perseverance? Not applicable to me, I’ll pass, thanks.
Look at me now, sipping a full mug of coffee with just a
dash of milk.
Look at me now, befriending people as we ponder upon the future of this society
I am now a part of.
Look at me now, studying the night away even though my future is uncertain.
[Trying my
best to be as correct as possible, since the people who do not have the same
opinion as me are not necessarily in the wrong and me in the right.]
I found this
image on Tumblr, and tons of repressed memories popped into my head. Memories
that needed to be spilled out onto virtual paper. Memories that some people
might identify with, and I hate that people had to go through this to identify
with the feeling.
I have always
been an over-the-top person with my heart on my sleeve, waiting to tell someone
the best thing ever. Poker Face is just a Lady Gaga song to me and not something
I have. Every time I had something exciting in my life, I always wanted to
share it with everyone.
Society in
this time and age, however, mostly works purely on sarcasm and putting down
people who actually like stuff. A person ends up having to like something “ironically”
just to get by the people who would pull them down.
I have been
on both sides, unfortunately. I used to be the person who used to shake my head
when people sang Taylor Swift songs or even said they liked her music. I was
also a person who liked to follow Glee unapologetically at the same time. See
the duality (read: hypocrisy) in my own personality?
I remember a
friend of mine who was in junior college while I was in engineering. She was in
charge of a fest and spent a lot of time publicizing it. A tiny part of me, a
part which I call the “evil society opinion” part, thought that she was wasting
her time for no reason, getting all hyped about a fest which would be forgotten
two hours after it ended. The rational part of me, the one which makes me try
to be politically correct, immediately thought, “Well, why can’t she be excited
about something? It is a thing she is into and something she likes.”
I want to put
it up to age. I want to say that as children, we have short attention spans and
do not have the time to humor someone else’s opinions. I want to say that as we
grow older, our maturity allows us to accept other opinions and listen to them.
However, this is the ideal situation, not the norm. I have friends who
sometimes listen to me talk about something for ages, but completely tune me
out if they are not in the mood to listen to me.
Sometimes, I
can see my own words hiccuping, the myriad of sentences in my multi-tasking
brain coming to a pause, my brain rearranging my thoughts to appease the other
person as opposed to getting my own opinions out. Let me tell you, this is a
very toxic path to walk on. If you’re not careful enough, you can easily fall
down the cliff and become a yes-person. You become so worried about other
people’s opinions that you completely mask your own to wholeheartedly agree
with theirs.
Coming back
to the original image, I observe that I am still apologetic when I rant on and
on about something. Whether it be feminism, Harry Potter or just the fact that
a student I work with validated all my hard work with one heart-felt
compliment, I worry that I talk too much, that I am making it all about myself.
However, looking
at it from an outsider’s point of view, I am content to let them ramble on and
on about their life. What is so bad about my life that it is not worth the same
attention that theirs is?
On a slightly
related note, people love to put themselves down, but not others. You can
always see people compliment other people on everything from their wardrobe to
small accomplishments in their life. Praising themselves, although, is another
matter. I almost always exert a self-deprecating view of the things I have
done, probably because it seems easier to make it sound like my accomplishments
are smaller, that they do not matter enough.
This might
just come back to society where praising yourself is equivalent to arrogance,
that only self-obsessed pricks (presumably) are allowed to build themselves up.
Well, I disagree. Sometimes, you have to be your own cheerleader. That implies
that achievements, however small or big should be celebrated. It is progress in
your life, and isn’t that the best thing ever?
So, remember
kids,
1.When your brain is ready and signals to your
mouth to say something that might upset someone, think about it:
a.Would you usually pass that comment?
b.Is it a dick comment?
c.If (b) is true, do not make it, irrespective of
the answer to a. Think of it as an OR statement.
2.Reward yourself when you have completed
something you thought was difficult. It doesn’t necessarily have to be food, it
could be that top you were eyeing, that YouTube video you haven’t seen yet
because it’s a whole hour as opposed to just about ten minutes, something that
makes you happy.
Have you guys ever faced something? Let me know and we can bond over it!
Keep this
song in your head, and sing it out to others (or even yourself) when they try
to bring you down:
