I had a horrible dream last night, I was back in high school and I
arrived in the cafeteria. No one wanted to sit with me and they all
looked at me and laughed and laughed and I had to sit alone and I was
sad, angry and ashamed. So I woke up, sad, angry and ashamed which
hadn't happened in a long time.
And the funny thing is, if something of the sort was to happen now, I
would never make a big deal of it because I know who I am, I know who I
want to become (a better version of me, but still me) and I try to get
there, so there's no shame. If people like me, it flatters me but if
they don't I don't mind so much. I know I am a good person and that I
try to become better. If things like not listening to the same music,
not having the same political ideas or being honest in regards to your
new shirt, shall you enquire, make it so that you dislike me, it will
make me sorry but not sad.
Why was I so miserable then? Simple:
I hated school and had to spend most of my time there, but I wasn't the
rebel that all people admire: I was weird-weird, not cool weird. Only me laughed at my jokes (well that still happens, eh)
I wanted to please my dad but didn't want to become
a doctor or this well behaved thing with good grades and nice clothes
(if only because I was too lazy to achieve any of these things) and so
I felt like a failure because those were the things that it took for
people to like me. So school and home not so good and no friends to turn
to. And what's even sadder is that I know that this is just some
typical teenage story, if not, Linkin Park and Evanescence wouldn't
sell so many albums :P I mean, I was never hungry, had a nice home, but not having any other perspective than my own at the time, my problems seemed so big.
If I was so miserable then, how come I'm
so happy now? Because I realized one day that I could choose to be
happy. That I should stop relying on what was around me to generate
happiness. Good things would be pleasant surprises and bad ones things
that I could deal with or accept. After all, if you wait in line and
it's soooooo slow, being unhappy won't make it faster, so why bother?
In the same vein, if people don't like me because of something that I
can change that would be an improvement (as in try to be nicer when I
answer negatively to liking your shirt) or accept that people won't
like certain things of me that I'm not willing to change (like saying
dirty jokes at a party or telling annoying truths about the
environment) then I either change or accept. I guess in the end, I will
always meet people that could never possibly like me for many reasons,
even if I still get puzzled by many of those.
I don't understand
this: how is it that a person with a big heart, but "weird" behaviours
will get rejected but not someone that will conform to the norm but be
a jerk? IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO ME. Is it so much more comforting to
establish behaviours as the norm and never question them? Is difference
reason enough to dislike someone? I'm not talking about differences of
culture (yes, for me someone who degrades women because he comes from a
country that says it's ok means I won't like them. Maybe one day I'll
be wise enough to be able to see past that, but I'm very far from it)
I'm talking about differences in things that do not matter. So what if
I like spankings? So what if I wear collars but I'm not a sub? So what
if I don't like pink ? 
I
just think that all these patterns that we see about people being
career oriented or wealth oriented make me disoriented (easy play on
words here, eh?) because I don't much care for these things and I don't
see why I should. Happy for me is a movie and a good friend. As long as
I still have money to pay for the net.
So why won't we accept everyone unless
they are unrespectful? Aren't imposing our values on others wrong?
Afteral, it's not because those values are good for you that it means
they are good for everyone (i.e. if you consider education primordial,
it's still no reason to judge someone who isn't standing up to your
standards because they had to work early in life to feed their
fatherless family) I know I'm not saying anything new, but it just
seems to me that we keep talking about it but no one is willing to
change.
In the end, what I make of all this is this: judge
people by their hearts. It would make for a far happier place to be. No
one would have to wonder about what they should be in order to be
accepted…
I guess this entry is not as “to the point” as I first
intended it to be and I’ve just let myself be dragged on by whatever
thought passed by, but I’ve had you read for long enough now and will
stop whining about how we should all get along, blah, blah.
But
if you are still reading that far (congratulations!) I’m going to ask
you this one thing: before you judge, ask yourself if it brings you
anything or if it’s justified to do so. If the answer is no (and it
probably is), please just try to accept that person, it doesn’t mean
you have to like him/her, but at least that you don’t have to make them
feel bad for whatever it is that makes them different from you.
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