How to encourage yourself when you are disappointed

 Everyone Has His Own Version Of You.

Looking back at the whole twilight of my life, I couldn't still understand why some things had to happen, why mine should be totally different - almost strange. I didn't blame people for not understanding me because I didn't understand myself either, but in any way, I knew I had to hold on to something, something that holds the truth about everyone, "Everyone has his own version of you, no matter what you do. But what matters most is the version that rules." I began to question myself at that point on what version actually ruled in my life.

I had to start from my family, (because family matters a lot to me) what do people think or say about them and what does my family think of me. The first answer I got on that question was a rebuke from my Dad. He said I wasn't as intelligent as my younger brother, and he feared that he may only be wasting his money on me. His view of me was lazy, not understandable and weak. I noted that and it bothered me most of the time. My Mom gave her own note on me, she said I was wise, smart and compassionate, though she couldn't just understand me most of the time, right from when I was really young. She remarked that she always felt like I matured faster emotionally than physically and most of the time, I knew things that was going to happen before they did and also portrayed an unusual kind of wisdom and authority that a child won't naturally portray. That was a fact she was still trying to understand about me, though she said there were many other unusual things I did that always kept her in wonderment. 

Now, those were two contrasting points about me, but they at least had something in common - the fact that I was not understandable. Later on, someone, a friend confirmed the same fact and also added in a complement that I was "always something else" and one smart and at the same time beautiful lady he had ever met and that what he admired most was my decency. For me, that was a point to be noted, because at some point, I didn't believe I was smart or intelligent as people claimed, if my Dad could clearly see the opposite and ring on it several times. At a point, if someone commented that I was brilliant, I'd just say "No, thanks. I'm not" and I'll be so embarrassed with myself, thinking the person only wanted to mock me.

Thoughts of that almost made me run crazy with frustration and depression. 

How could I make my Dad see what others saw about me? How could I make him stop all the comparisons and insults, how do I make myself more understandable and not appear as the strange weirdo that was not like everyone else in nature? I kept thinking sadly. I really wanted to be better, at least so my Dad will be proud of me for once, even if everyone else wasn't. I found a quote by Bruce Lee that said we should stop confessing negative things about ourselves, even as a joke, because our minds may not know the difference and start acting out negativity. I held onto that and tried to forget my Dad's confessions about me.

One day I met my Dad and told him I wanted to be a neurosurgeon and more importantly, a genetic engineer. He started like someone who heard a really funny joke and maintained an amused look, but I maintained a serious poise and looked directly into his face and he knew I was really serious. He asked me "How do you intend to go with that? Infact, do you even know what you're talking about? You heard it from your friend with smart dreams and you think you can also do that with all your bad grades?" I asked him "What makes you think it's someone else's dream? Why can't you see me differently even for once? Everyone thinks I'm intelligent except you! I don't even have a friend that'll tell me her dreams! Why do you always think I'm not better, disrespectful and slothful" I said trying really hard never to let my tears fall. He glared at me: "I hope to see how you do that. Let them keep deceiving you, I know you better than they do! But don't even think it's my money you're gonna waste! You have no idea how those courses are hard, keep deceiving yourself. I still wonder if you'll ever cross high school!" He said these all in a fit and walked out angrily. I cried so much wondering if what he said was really true, if not why was he so bent on it? Was that his own version of me that ruled in his own heart? It didn't rule in my world but it did in his heart and it mattered a lot to me. So does it mean I couldn't go through the medical field and learn what is necessary so I can help my mentally ill brother and also my little brother that had a spinal injury, was there something deeper in what he meant with his words, or why did he have to only pick on me?

I discovered that no matter how I tried, maybe, I was never going to change his version about me and the best thing to have been done at that point was to love myself for who I am and move on. I decided never to live to please others who refuse to be pleased and also never to walk on the standards that others lay up for me, but to carve my own path and walk through it in the best way I can, because no matter what I do, I can never be who I'm not.

I decided to forget everything he said and hold tight to the quote my heart came up with, "Everyone has his own version of you". Maybe that was his version, maybe that was what some people thought of me - to be weird, but that didn't rule in me. It is what I chose to be that rules my world, not the decisions of others concerning me.

More encouraging facts are underway, feel free comment

Written by:

Blessing Ushie.