In conversations with various friends and family members nowadays, one theme that usually sticks out is how people feel imperfect. How the smallest things (in my humble opinion) prevent them from living life the easiest way, how such tiny things can cripple them from the things they truly desire achieving and yet choose not to for not feeling worthy, lacking a better and more polished way of saying it. Their demise instead of their desire.
Maybe I am dramatic, but if you think life is quite a short existence full of things to be done…well,then I am not. I am being at least realistic. People are so hung up with their own flaws and how imperfect they are, that they willingly put a veil over their eyes and see themselves so poorly.
I grew up listening to my family, whenever reproving any behaviors they may seem fit, saying the phrase: what will the others say? That was engraved in my mind. Even if it wasn’t, I would be constantly reminded of it throughout my existence:
You are speaking too loud, what will the others say?
You are cursing too much, what will the others say?
You wear too much black, what will the others say?
Endlessly. Oh, then there was the variation, ‘Everyone is looking at …’
Don’t wear weird clothes, everyone is looking at you.
Don’t cry, everyone is looking at us.
The slightest inconvenience would bring those up. Eventually, as I grew older and, naturally, started questioning authority, I asked as loud as I could: WHO ARE THOSE OTHERS AND WHAT DO THEY WANT FROM ME? No answer. It was one of those things that it was just because. Just because it is what it is. Period.
Everything was a shame and nothing was good enough. I did not wear shorts and skirts until my late teens because I did not like my legs. They were too skinny and pasty. What will the others say if I dare to wear a short dress on a hot sunny day. Most of my life I avoided wearing a bikini at all costs because I was too skinny in the wrong places… chubby in the wrong places. My God, everyone is looking at me.
You know what? No one is looking. No one cares. It is the opposite. Eventually, I thought that those others my family kept talking about were -plot twist, brace yourselves- in fact US! We came up with that to justify what we thought was wrong with us and people, all disguised as some weird made up social norm. I am not going to be philosophical or start a psychological analysis here because it is not my point, this is just a blog, after all. *
I started to notice those patterns in everything I disliked about myself or about people in general. It would come out as me either feeling sorry or criticism. It is a prison inside our minds. I will, as the people, go through a life punishing myself for not being whatever crap the others did not like me to be as a lame excuse not to do things. Fear. Fear to be. To feel. To live.
This is a waste of time. Such a waste of precious time. Time that we won’t get back. Ever. Time that will keep ticking until there is no more.
Then you were never fit enough for that dress.
Never smart enough for that doctorate.
Never too good for talking to that girl/guy you saw at a party.
A lifetime worrying that you are not the best you could be, excusing yourself for that, stumbling on the desire of being perfect only to achieve the demise of your wasted time here on Earth. This is the thing that keeps me up at night. The feeling of the wasted time that will never go back. This scares me more than going to the beach wearing a swimsuit, even though I am overweight. Or wearing a short dress showing my legs that are far from tan. My hair is frizzy because last night I preferred to sleep early rather than styling it perfectly straight.
There are days it comes to me more clearly than some other days. Old habits die hard and I need to practice not hating myself, the old feeling disguised as what the others are thinking of me. Think less and do more, for your time is ticking, my friend and no one\’s gonna stop it for you. Not even the others because hell is, indeed, other people. Us.
* The phrase “ Hell is other people” comes from the play No Exit (in the original French, Huis Clos) by Jean Paul Sartre. He says we are unable to escape the watchful gaze of everyone around us. \”By there mere appearance of the Other,\” says Sartre in Being and Nothingness, \”I am put in the position of passing judgment on myself as on an object, for it is as an object that I appear to the Other.\” Read more here:
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