"When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you."
African ProverbI can really only speak for myself, and about the things I have experienced, but I would imagine many people would find what I am going to say to be true..
Everyone knows someone that is a "
badass" or whatever you want to call it. & Everyone looks at those people in a different way. The kind of person I'm thinking of is the one that does pretty much everything self destructive, illegal, frowned upon, you know the deal. But
aren't the majority of those people "popular" or something like that? What I have come to realize, or believe, is that I have never met one of those people that is the way they are without reason. Something generally happened in their life to "fuck them up"
per say. Something traumatic, something
negligent, &
alot of times it can be a manifestation of their own mind. Who knows really, but I suppose my point would be that it's not really right to ridicule those people because they have their own burdens. In fact, it's not really right to ridicule any person but yourself. That idea is very hard to except, I'm aware. It is human nature to be judgemental & by no means am I trying to say that I never judge anyone or something like that.
To put it into perspective:
Think about your neighborhood, and then just your one street. Each house on that street that has people living in it is a different story. Now think about just the people that live in your home, each one of them has their own story. Each one has their own heartbreaks, memories, thoughts. Then think about your self. You have your own heartbreaks, memories, & thoughts as well. Everyone has their own bullshit to deal with, is a blunt way to put it. & really all these little personal stories morph together at some point, and the way I see it is that we are all really fighting for the same thing. Self Acceptance.
I suppose this would be the point where I talk about how this factors into my life, right?
Looking back before my freshman year and actually a portion of the first semester, I was a very different person. I would always look down on girls that "needed a boy to feel good about themselves," or "were always looking for male attention." Looking back now, I can see exactly how I was slowly becoming that girl though. I began to thrive off of male attention, mainly because it was new to me. I began to search for it, I may even go as far to say I was begging for it. I began dressing the way I thought guys wanted me to, talking, doing my makeup, everything in my life began to revolve around boys. The girl I was at that point was no where near the person I really am. I don't know how related all these events are, but they all
kind of clumped together to
ultimately form one big
disastrous, self destructive, painful semester. I pretty much lost all my friends, my relationships with my family, my personal interests, my individuality, I guess you could just say my whole life was gone. My mind had become a one way track of how I was going to find love or "get guys." I know for a solid fact though, that there are other girls that have these same types of thoughts and feelings.
Alot of things happened, I did
alot of soul searching, too many things to even go over, but eventually, I figured out why I felt the way I did.
I wasn't comfortable with myself. I wasn't comfortable with being alone. I didn't have self love. & For me
at least, that was terribly hard to admit. It was hard to accept that I had changed, that I screwed
alot of people over, and I waisted a fuck load of time to be frank. In no way, shape, or form is it easy to just find your self love either, even if you have figured out that is what's missing. It is something that needs to be worked at, and I believe that work of that nature is best done alone. Everyone learns differently & everyone has a different purpose in life. I don't really judge any certain way of life, everyone has
something different that works for them. That way of life may not be right for you or work for you, but it really isn't your
business, choice, or problem if you think about it.
To conclude this
excessively long post, I would like to state it is important to realize that everything that a person goes through brings them to another place in life, and eventually it will bring them to the place they want to be. I am not sure if I completely love myself, or if I am completely content. But I am sure that even if I don't wake up every morning happy, I have happiness throughout everyday. But the thing that is so profound about that is, I don't get that happiness from material things, boys, or really my friends even. I get that happiness because I am so very very proud of where I am today. How I can admit that I did
alot of things I shouldn't have, but I learned and am still learning from them everyday. I have happiness in my life everyday because I love the person I am, or the person I am becoming, or the person I am planing to be. What ever you want to call it, it is a very very profound place to be indeed.