Call a Spade a Spade

It's hard to stay positive all the time. There are certain people who, I find, are fleeting with their praise but generous with their criticisms.  Oh, how at the sound of their criticisms, I would cry foul and play victim!  Such passion! Such fervor! Such vim! I would sit there, box of chocolates in hand, turning their words into absolutes and colouring myself inadequate.

If only I had the sense to tell somebody about my self-pitying notions perhaps they would have snapped me out of it. Seriously, if I met me when I did that, I would slap me. Okay, that's a little harsh, maybe a little shake would have done.  But thinking back to the impassioned insecurity and the all-but-charming self-deprecation is, to say the least, cringe-worthy. Playing victim was far easier than proving anybody wrong, not even for my own sake.

But alas, Gloom was not my shade of grey and somewhere along the way I met with Sense. A couple of poor choices in haircuts later, fed up with my rags-to-rags story I started to straighten out. First came school and then came the grades and finally came Maslow's self-actualization. No, I kid, but I finally worked my way up his hierarchy of needs and found myself somewhere resembling happy.

It took a few drunken ramblings to embarrass myself into normalcy.  I realized that these criticisms did have everything to do with me, but not in the way I had first assumed. I had taken them personally because I couldn't take them constructively. These comments were not intended to hurt me, they were a way for the Universe to remind me of the things I needed to work on. (Of course there's the brand of person who superimposes their insecurities on you when there is absolutely no truth to their criticism, but that, my friends, is another day's work.)

It was hard to be honest with myself, it still is very hard. It's hard to release that vanity and self-bias for the sake of seeing reality and being honest. It's hard acknowledging your flaws only to find still more existing. But these people and their criticisms have taught me tolerance and acceptance. I've learned to take a deep breath, step back for a second, and listen to what they are telling me. Of course, such is not always the case, but it's a work in progress.

I find myself trying to be better. I try to be honest about myself and my weaknesses, understanding that these weaknesses are impermanent and that they do not define me. There are times when it makes sense to disregard others when they nitpick, other times I find myself thinking that their criticisms are messages from the Universe reminding me of who I could be and how I might get there.