There’s something incredibly embarassing about trying when you’re not yet sure of the results. But when exactly is one ever certain? Time and time again we hear advice from people who succeeded saying that “all you have to do is try and not be afraid to look weird or ‘cringe’ to others”. But that in itself isn’t as easy as one might liken it to be. See, for example, often times before trying and being ‘cringe you would listen to people saying more than once how embarassing something is. Notably, when I started going to dance classes on my own a couple of colleagues exclained how they would feel “so embarassed” to go there alone. And here’s the thing — had I been me at 16, I totally would’ve gotten the point of that. I would be embarassed too, which is why I never would’ve gone.
But see, now I’m an adult and part of the luxury of that is to understand that you don’t always get to do things with other people and sometimes, the things you want to do are goddamn embarassing. While my inner child is healed and ready to thrive out in the world, my inner teenager is coming to terms with herself. Yes, I might be 30 — it doesn’t really matter. Some people’s inner children and teenagers are running their lives even years after they turned a certain age and well into their 50s and 60s. The point is to console them and reparent ourselves to the best of our abilities, at least that’s what I’ve been doing recently and I think it works.
The way the world works is incredibly ridiculous, as it’s self-policed by the ways our brains are wired. See, people are wired to be afraid of novelty and straying away from it at every chance. We like predictibility and familiarity. Rarely does someone change because they want to, trust me, neither do I even though I’ve changed myself more times than I can remember, I wasn’t a very nice teenager, in fact, I was kind of scary even to myself today. But that’s beyond the point. The thing is, we are wired to dislike things that are uncomfortable for us or even seem so. In that way, I can only suppose, when someone in (or out) of a group threatens the status quo, they threaten the safety of the group as a whole since it’s much more comfortable grazing the pasture without too much thought. But if someone goes out and does something radically different than that, then the whole group is at risk and we just can’t have that.
But the thing is it pays to be weird and different, but only in the long run. In the short term it’s nerve wrecking to find yourself to be so much different than everyone. At least for me, I’ve always found myself a bit lost in the notion of my weirdness. When is it good enough and when is it just a bit too much for my own comfort? As a kid, I was bullied for being different. The other kids found it funny that a friend and I were roleplaying ‘Catwoman’ and I had climbed on top of the school lockers. Yes, that is objectively weird and if someone did this now I would most probably laugh about it, but also exclaim how cool I think it is. Well, the other kids didn’t find it cool. On the contrary, they laughed and called me ‘Catwoman’. Obviously, I bragged about what we were doing thinking it was objectively cool. Oh well, that nickname stuck with me until high school or at least until the kid that used it the most left. And good riddance!
But the next thing is that my very own parents also have the habit of making fun of me for doing stuff. When I do or say something weird they would mock me for days and honestly, it eventually went past the point of just gentle mocking into mockery I definitively wish to stop. But there’s no stopping it and at this point, I’ve gotten used to it. The thing is, it builds character and helps me develop thinker skin. In terms of the kids at my school, obviously they didn’t have to want the best for me or even care about me in the slightest, but at least with my parents it comes from a loving perspective. Or at least I like to think so.
At the end of the day, what matters is trying your hand at success. If we try and fail, that’s one thing. If we never try, we never fail and thus never know whether we can succeed. There are a thousand things in my head that can go wrong with anything at any given moment, but there are also a thousand things that can end up more wildly successful than can ever be anticipated. All it takes is the willingness to try and the boldness to not care what anyone else thinks. I used to be very easily affected by what people thought. Ever since middle school, I tried to control the narrative and find a way to make people like me. It hurt me so much for people to be mean or to misunderstand me, but this was happening quite often. Even the one girl who came to console me while I cried in the bathroom probably did it out of pitty and not actual care. The point of the matter is that if I was never myself, I would’ve never had gotten there in the first place and I would’ve been a different person now — probably less traumatised, but still.
This is the thing that I’ve been telling myself recently: all of the roads I’ve been on lead me here. They lead me to the adventure I’m currently on. Had I taken a different route or made a different decision, I wouldn’t have been exactly where I am now and where I am now is where I feel calm, happy and supported. Of course, there’s always new things to strive towards but at the end of the day, what matters is making that first step towards your dreams. The next few steps come naturally, one by one without the need for unnecessary worry or despair — it’s building momentum. Yes, we might feel insecure, cringe or even completely out of bounds and like we’re losers, but that’s just at first. Because beyond it all there is nothing but the simple truth that not trying at all is way worse than failing. It’s not even giving ourselves a chance to succeed in the first place.
So wherever you are in your journey, please always remember to give yourself a chance.
Love,
Alex
