Daily Blog #335
To be human is to make many mistakes. Not just your occasional slip up like swearing in front of your kid for the very first time. But the mistakes that will leave you feeling momentarily paralyzed like realizing you forgot to pay your car loan for the last two months as you watch your car being towed away. Yeah, those mistakes – not good.
Too often in life, we strive to be perfect. Almost as if we are going to be put on trial for the mistakes that we make. As the mistakes add up, and the more mistakes that we make, the less confidence we have in ourselves. But what we fail to realize (or at least what I failed to realize) is that the only way we learn in life is through making mistakes.
This has been the story of my life. After years of pain, though, I finally realized that all of my fears and doubts have stemmed from the fact that I was living my life solely to prove myself to others. I was living for the acceptance, for the approval, and for the liking of those around me. When none of that ever came, the more that I would get down on myself and believe that I was truly incapable of achieving anything meaningful of being liked by anyone.
So for someone who thinks the way that I used to think, for that person who is always trying to go above and beyond, I have some advice for you. If you want to find happiness in your life, if you want to achieve any of your goals, or if you just overall want to be better at something, then it’s now time to prove yourself. Not to your spouse, not to your friends, and not to your parents, but to yourself. Prove all that you are capable and worthy of achieving to nobody other than yourself.
Do you think you have what it takes? It might seem like a simple task, but if it was so simple, then we would all already be doing it.
Try walking around for an entire day doing only the things that you want to be doing. Try putting all of your wants (not needs) before the wants (again, not needs) of others. Or try speaking what is on your mind, dress the way that you want to, or act like the person you want to be all without caring what others will think of you. Now, I’m sure you can see how difficult this is.
We are natural people pleasers. Even the most selfish and most self-centered individuals act based on the acceptance and approval of those around them. And I am not saying to become selfish or self-centered. I am saying to be you to the greatest extent that you can possibly be so that you can give the world all that you are.
In my sophomore year of college, I was diagnosed with depression. Not the kind of depression where I was simply sad, but the kind where I would wake up, maybe go to class if I could find the strength to get out of bed, come home only to crawl right back into bed, and would either sleep or stare at the walls that constantly felt as if they were caving in on me. This became my life for months.
For years I was told that I wasn’t good enough, that I was fat, and that nobody would ever like me. I thought that my depression stemmed from the fact that I was fat, that I wasn’t good enough, and that nobody would ever like me. For the last five years, this is what I thought.
But the truth is, my depression didn’t stem from this. While it played a role in my depression, the real reason that I was depressed was that I was trying to prove myself to everybody else instead of being the person that I wanted to be. As I started to believe the lies that others would tell me, guess what happened? Ta-da… depression appeared in my life.
This is why I am so passionate about telling everybody to focus on themselves and to focus on all that they are and capable of achieving. It’s to help save others from the ongoing pain that I was constantly putting myself through. Nobody deserves to experience the pain of trying to be accepted by the world
I wish I could tell you how much my life has changed since I quit trying to prove myself to everyone around me. I have never been happier in life, I have never believed in myself more, and I have never loved the life that I am living more than I do now. All because I quit trying to prove myself to others, and started proving myself to the one person who’s opinion of me actually matters: my own.
You and I are worthy enough of living the life that we want to live, so let’s start to live it to the fullest!
Michael Bonnell
3/31/2019
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