Today I realized that, in a two and a half year degree program, each semester can (by rounding down) be essentially understood as correlating to a 4-year college class designation. Which means that I am, for all intents and purposes, a sophomore. I find this comforting for some reason.
Last night I had a 3am Facebook chat conversation with a good friend, who gave me some much needed advice: being perfect is impossible...and my friends, family, and God don't expect me to be perfect. And not being perfect doesn't make me a failure, even with my faith. I spent most of the last semester feeling like a fraud, being so ashamed of my faith struggles that I consistently turned inward and closed in on myself rather than reaching out to others. I think to an extent, it's almost become a subconscious thing to try to put on an appearance of having everything all together, saying "Fine" or "Okay" when people ask me how I am even while I'm becoming more and more depressed and overwhelmed. Besides not wanting people to worry about me, I don't want to let on that I'm having a hard time. Without admitting it to myself, I've spent years subconsciously believing that the key to people having a good opinion of me is to succeed at everything.
No more of that.
When I was younger, I used to do this silly thing where I would semi-consciously establish rivals in my head: some classmate who was remarkably similar to me, but seemed to be just a LITTLE better. More popular, prettier, smarter, whatever...or, someone who had hurt me/offended me in some way. And, once said rival was established, every time I outdid her in some way - a better grade, whatever - I'd feel better about myself, like I'd "beat" them. Pathetic, right? What's more pathetic is that, mostly without realizing it, I still do this to an extent. In many different ways, I consistently fall into this trap of allowing comparison to others determine my view of myself.
I'm done with that. I'm 22, it's time to grow up. And it's time to be confident in myself simply by virtue of being myself.
As my friend reminded me last night, I'm perfect at being perfectly me. And if being perfectly me means being imperfect, so be it. I can still be loved by a perfect God.
And I'm deciding, right now, to be okay with that.
"The only way of catching a train I have ever discovered is to miss the train before." - Gilbert K. Chesterton
Just remember:
ReplyDeleteLook to your future, look to your God, and look to your friends (whether near or far away) and you will do just fine.
:)
Love and Miss you.
Yeah, just be yourself and appreciate who you are and what you've been given. I mean, you're pretty cool I guess. Hee hee.
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