TuesdayThoughts

Sharing.

August 11, 2015


"You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars." - Gary Allen

In general if someone breaks my trust I find it really hard to forgive, I spend a lot of my time wondering what could've been, and I hate sharing my things.

It's not that I don't want to share my belongings because most of the time I don't mind, it's just hat people have a tendency to not take care of other people's things and that's what really bothers me. Sometimes I just want something all to myself, that's why I often keep things bottled up and hidden away because I just constantly have the feeling that someone is going to come and take it from me, and once they have taken it they're going to do so much better with it then me. 

The real question is; why do I feel like this?

To be honest I've been this way since I was a child. I hated sharing things with my siblings and I would be constantly criticised for my inability to share, but the thing is, in my mind I couldn't risk it. I couldn't risk giving someone else something that was so precious to me in case it was damaged when I got it back.
I'm still the same today, which may make me seem childish but if someone has broken my trust in the past I'm going to be incredibly sceptical of them. The other day my sister was borrowing a book of mine and I made her carry it in a zip lock bag because I didn't want her to damage it. My family have learnt to live with it and accept that that's just the way I am, which is the really good thing about families, they love you unconditionally and accept you for who you are.

As well as my things, I'm the same in life. It makes me incredibly uncomfortable when other people copy me or do something similar. Not in a way where it's unintentional but if the person is doing something exactly the same as me, it's going to bother me. Personally I think it stems back to the whole inability to share, just picture me as a small child ripping the toy out of your hand because I was too afraid to lend it to you. Sometimes I deliberately don't tell someone something because I know that they will go and do the exact same thing as me and it bothers me, it really does. This happens a lot of the time with friends, because what if the new person likes everyone else more than me? What if they develop a better friendship and I'm left behind because I'm not interesting enough.

It just feels like they're being stolen away from me and therefore I've become second best, tossed aside like yesterdays washing. To be honest I know that for a lot of people I'm they're second or third choice and it sucks, I know it's impossible to be everyones first choice, but consciously knowing that someone only messaged me because they wanted something from me or that I'm their back up hurts. It's the same as when you're with someone and they're texting someone else. It just feels like you're being put second and you're not worth their time. 

From a psychological perspective this will all probably stem from some childhood issue and it will take a few months of therapy and a couple grand to fix, but I guess that makes me, me. No one wants to live in a cookie cutter society where we are exact copies of each other, no matter how exciting it is to find someone with the same interests as you, imagine if everything you loved you the entire world loved and therefore you had to share the things that make you unique with everyone. It may be my inner hipster, but I can't imagine anything worse. I can't imagine living in a world where everyone is the same. I would be bored to death and after years of growing up reading thousands of books where the character who hates everything being the same, is the one who goes on the adventure, changes the nature of society and becomes the hero; to me, it seems like believing in change and difference is the way to be. 

The thing is that by keeping my secrets and my belongings to myself it really isn't hurting anyone. At the end of the day I'm just not sharing something with someone else and that's not harming anyone or going to lead to a life or death situation. Maybe when I'm older I'll learn that skill I was meant to learn at age four but forgot.
One day I might be able to let everyone borrow my things and not have a single care if they are returned damaged (as you can tell I'm still holding onto some grudges), but for now what's mine is mine and what's yours is yours.

♡♡♡

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TuesdayThoughts

Fear.

August 03, 2015


"We can easily forgive a child for being afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." - Plato

There are so many quotes to describe fear, so many beautiful sayings by beautiful people with incredible viewpoints on life. It's strange that something as powerful and overwhelming as fear is something so universally experienced. It's not like fear is this completely revolutionary topic that has never been spoken about before, because it has. Fear has been psychologically picked to pieces and I think that the most common, explanation is the flight or fight response.

When fear strikes we call upon or primal instincts, and generally our instincts tell us to either strap on the boxing gloves and fight or turn around and bolt in the other direction. I don't entirely understand where this instinct comes from but I know that we experience it. We are shown it on television and in books but when I think back on my entire 18 years of life I have not once been told how to deal with fear. The general and stereotypical idea is "face your fears." We are meant to mirror the protagonist in all our favourite TV shows and books where they take on the bad guy and defeat them, getting the girl or the gold. But the thing is, that's fiction, it's a writer creating a world that doesn't exist where they have 100% control over what happens. From the perspective of an average person it's sometimes incredibly hard and often dangerous to mirror the values that we are subjected to our whole lives, we are left wondering what we are doing wrong and why we can't overcome our fear.

Generally speaking I usually run. I take flight and avoid my problems. Sometimes I run and never face them. Other times I run till I feel brave enough the face my fears. Then I'll run back and fight them. I'll fight for what I want and I won't let fear run my life. But when I do this, it's often too late. I've missed the opportunity to do something great all because I got scared. That's what bothers me the most about fear. Not the fact that it makes my body shake or that it makes me cry, I hate that it makes me miss out. It brings back the whole idea of 'FOMO' but ironically it's all connected. You're scared to say yes, so you turn down an offer then you're stuck with that fear of missing out, feeling like you're being left behind.

The thing about fear is that you remember what you're scared of but you can't remember feeling fear. I don't know whether this is some psychological, natural human response where we repress certain feelings but I can't remember feeling that feeling of being scared. I can remember moments and memories where I would've felt scared and afraid but I can't remember that tight feeling in my chest, where my palms beginning to sweat, my heart-rate skyrockets and my body begins to shake uncontrollably. I know that growing up I was scared of dogs and the dark but in those moments where I would've felt scared I don't remember what it physically feels like.
Did I have a different response to fear than what I do now? Was I brave and optimistically believed that I could face every fear?

At the end of the day we all want to know how do you stop feeling scared. We want to know how to you stop letting fear control our lives.

To tell you the truth I have no clue. I don't know why or how but sometimes fear controls my life and it stops me from doing the things I love with the people I love more than anything in the world. I let my fears become so much bigger than they are, and it's not right. Fear should not have that much power of an individual. Being scared is a state of mind not a physical barrier, and I think that taking the time to acknowledge that is the first step in facing your fears. I don't know anyone who is completely fearless. Everyone I know is afraid of something and even though that's what makes us human many people fight fear. They think it's a sign of weakness.

I don't know how much about fear, but what I do know and believe is that we are given a choice.
We are given the choice to fight or take flight.

♡♡♡

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