Where the Hell is My Umbrella?
Have you ever noticed there is no shortage of people out there who seem to live to kill your enthusiasm? Whether they are people in your own family, friends, co-workers, even total strangers, there are so many people out there who want to rain on your parade.
The worst culprits are family and friends. You'd figure that the people who are closest to you should naturally want to build you up, praise your talents, encourage you. In my life, I have found this is the furthest from the truth. That's why I have learned to keep my dearest, most prized aspirations and dreams to myself. I have had the wind knocked out of my sails so many times by naively confiding in one of my parents or siblings an idea I had, which I was really passionate about, only to hear them say something like, "Are you nuts? That would never work." Then I ended up feeling totally depressed, totally helpless, totally lost, wondering why I had ever thought the idea plausible in the first place. People can be really poisonous.
It's not all their fault. My parents, like many of my friends' parents, grew up probably not knowing what dreams even were. They were born in Europe and lived on farms and their education was very rudimentary. They were expected to work at menial jobs all their lives, like their parents before them, and when you're stooped over doing backbreaking work, I guess it's pretty hard to be inspired. Practicality is a mode of survival.
I'm not saying we should all delude ourselves and believe we can have anything and everything we want. But if you really feel in your heart and in your guts that something is viable, whether it's a job, a relationship, an acquisition of some kind ... go for it. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. And if it doesn't work out or come to fruition, so what? At least you'll know you tried and didn't just automatically smother your inner voice with self-doubt and cynicism.
I have never been able to understand people who accept a shitty situation in life. Even if it's unavoidable for the time being, I don't understand why people just give up and assume that life will never change. Of course it won't, if you don't do something to change it! I have been so miserable at various times in my life, and I have never stopped thinking of a way to change it. But so many people around me don't even try. They just shrug their shoulders and gaze blankly at the t.v. screen. Some people are just born with no fight in them, I guess. I can't think of any other way to explain it.
The worst culprits are family and friends. You'd figure that the people who are closest to you should naturally want to build you up, praise your talents, encourage you. In my life, I have found this is the furthest from the truth. That's why I have learned to keep my dearest, most prized aspirations and dreams to myself. I have had the wind knocked out of my sails so many times by naively confiding in one of my parents or siblings an idea I had, which I was really passionate about, only to hear them say something like, "Are you nuts? That would never work." Then I ended up feeling totally depressed, totally helpless, totally lost, wondering why I had ever thought the idea plausible in the first place. People can be really poisonous.
It's not all their fault. My parents, like many of my friends' parents, grew up probably not knowing what dreams even were. They were born in Europe and lived on farms and their education was very rudimentary. They were expected to work at menial jobs all their lives, like their parents before them, and when you're stooped over doing backbreaking work, I guess it's pretty hard to be inspired. Practicality is a mode of survival.
I'm not saying we should all delude ourselves and believe we can have anything and everything we want. But if you really feel in your heart and in your guts that something is viable, whether it's a job, a relationship, an acquisition of some kind ... go for it. Don't listen to anyone who tells you otherwise. And if it doesn't work out or come to fruition, so what? At least you'll know you tried and didn't just automatically smother your inner voice with self-doubt and cynicism.
I have never been able to understand people who accept a shitty situation in life. Even if it's unavoidable for the time being, I don't understand why people just give up and assume that life will never change. Of course it won't, if you don't do something to change it! I have been so miserable at various times in my life, and I have never stopped thinking of a way to change it. But so many people around me don't even try. They just shrug their shoulders and gaze blankly at the t.v. screen. Some people are just born with no fight in them, I guess. I can't think of any other way to explain it.
posted by emily pound at 8:09 AM
1 Comments:
Hi Jennie,
Boy, do I hear you. Out of all the people in my life, my mother, her significant other and one of my brothers have been the worst when it comes to supporting you. The times when I have been trusting enough to confide in them about something important to me, I have always ended up regretting it because they made me feel like a total idiot instead of giving me the support and encouragement I was looking for.
The cliche that "family will always be there" is indeed that, a cliche. It doesn't work that way for all of us. But I think those of us who have had to rely on ourselves for strength are all the stronger for it.
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