Tag: accepting

Disneyland vs. The Rest of the Country

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I walked through Disneyland with my family yesterday. I love watching different people who have come to visit from all over the world. There are all sorts of different dynamics that go on. Families, newlyweds, friends, babies. It’s a lot of fun to see everyone having a good time.

Normally, I’d take this for granted but in this country right now, I am unable to. I watch people and I wonder how they can have a hard time accepting other nationalities than their own.

Everyone was there for one reason: to have fun.

Realistically though, at least a few of the people that were visiting had to be from areas that weren’t as mixed racially. There had to be a few people that didn’t appreciate different cultures and probably saw those of us from them in a negative way.

It’s so hard for me to imagine though. In such a magical place, where my kid gets so excited seeing her favorite characters, how can there be people who hate? How can there be people who feel differently about someone else based on the color of their skin, their religion, or their language?

I know that it’s probably been going on in this country for a longer time than I’m aware of and right now, it’s coming out more than it ever has before.

But being in the happiest place on Earth makes me forget for a little while that a negative feeling such as hate even exists.

How Do We Accept Ourselves As We Are?

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I have this idealized image in my head about what a perfect person is like. And I have strived for so long to be that person in every aspect. Guess what happens? I fail. Not only once, but over and over again. And I take it hard and then criticize myself and really beat myself up for feeling like a failure. 

Is this realistic? Logically, I know it’s not. How do I accept myself as I am though? How do I make myself realize that I am a human being and bound to imperfection?

Where this idealistic image that we measure ourselves up to come from? Why do we feel this need to be perfect all the time? Why are we not allowed to feel and not allowed to break down? Why do we beat ourselves up for being disappointed that we couldn’t be perfect?

I’ve been working on this for a long time. I still don’t know why I have a hard time accepting myself. Most of us do our best to be good people. Most of us really try to enjoy our lives and be happy. So why do we have such a hard time understanding that being 120% all of the time is not humanly possible?

Maybe if we try to be perfect (and we succeed), no one has the opportunity to dislike us. No one can complain about us or find a reason to not be nice to us. Maybe, on the other side, being less than perfect provides people with a valid reason (at least according to our emotionally confused vision) for walking away from us. We can blame ourselves if a relationship doesn’t work out or if we have fights with our friends. 

I’m not sure how to battle this feeling of being less than perfect and becoming okay with it. I want to accept myself for who I am. And, to those who don’t like who I am, I want to tell them to get lost. How do we find that within ourselves? How do we find the strength to really show people who we actually are with no masks attached? 

 

Name-Dropping

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“Oh, I know them. They love me!” 

Have many times have we said this? Have many times have we been talking with someone and we mention that we know someone that they know even if we don’t really know that person? How many times do we act like we know everyone and everyone knows us? 

Why do we name drop? Does it make us more important to know everyone? Is it a question of our validity to the world again? 

Is it possible that we can just be realistic and appreciate the people that we actually do have in our lives and just be no one to the masses? Is it possible we can do something for the sake of the action and not just because it would make us known to the world? 

And what about the people whose names we drop? Are they really important in some way? Are they just really popular? What does popularity even mean anymore? 

We’ve built this idea up of what is right in society. We desire acceptance and approval from others within. We want for people to know that we are important and that people want to know us and need us. We want to be valid. We want to know that something we do makes sense and that we will leave a mark on this world. We want to never be forgotten. 

I think the first step in really accepting ourselves. We need to know that we are important to the people around us, regardless of the masses. We are allowed to know a few people important to our lives and not be in the midst of every huge social event that occurs. Knowing ourselves is the more important part of this. In knowing ourselves, we accept that we are who we are and our lives do make a difference to the people around us. 

Maybe then we can finally believe that being just who we are is absolutely fine even if it goes against everything what we thought we knew.