Seventh grade has developed me into someone I wasn’t before. It has taught me and opened up ways I interact with the world. My advisor, who I can’t thank enough, has encouraged me to ask for help when I need it. This year, I hope to continue this newfound asset, but develop better skills in interacting with myself.
The first step to making the world a better place, is to make yourself better. I think it’s that simple. If you haven’t developed yourself, what can you say from personal experience about how to move the world forward? Here’s how I want to develop myself this year, here’s a goal I am setting for myself: to be less self-denigrating.
This is how Merriam-Webster defines the word “denigrating.”
Sure is sounds a little austere, and maybe a little bit haughty, yet this is often how I find myself reacting to my own mistakes and imperfections. Now I know you going to say to me, “Ava, take a breather. No one is perfect.” I’ve been told this hundreds of times. No joke. No exaggeration. Hundreds of times since the day I started school. I used to overtly punish myself for petty things, by locking myself in my bedroom, or scrambling up the stairs to the study on the third floor of my house for peace and quiet. I would cry, cry and cry, even though Dad kept yelling at me, saying crying wouldn’t do any good and that I had to make a plan to attack my issues. Even though I knew I would walk into school the next day with big, swollen, puffy pinkish eyes. Now, I react a little bit differently. I’m less blatant about expressing my chagrin. I don’t like to cry in front of my friends or family. I don’t like to tell people as much. I’m finding myself to be much more introverted and reticent about my apprehensions. Sure, those who know me would claim that I’m quite extroverted, but it’s only because I haven’t expressed what I truly feel to them. In the end, I observe hatred centered with full force towards myself for the careless mistakes I had already rectified. I observe frustration from envy of other people. I also observe austere self-stricture from things that make me stressed.
The weirdest thing, is that often times I find crying helps. It’s almost…comforting. It’s a consequence of not having my life together, but the tears almost bind the wounds. I also find that exercise feels really good. It acts as a confidence booster. When I start at my doorstep and return to my doorstep after a three mile run, I feel like I can do anything I want in the world. I’ve written about this in my post about stress, but I’m really beginning to absorb the benefits of pacing, outside or inside. When my brain goes on “auto-pilot” with the stepping and the swinging of the arms, it really has all the room it needs to think about how to organize and plan the rest of my day, so that I may feel less stress, which occasionally lowers my chances of self-denigration. Yet I’m still searching for more ways to love myself, more ways to except my impurities, and more ways to be live without the incessant pressure of criticism.
So the goal of this post was not to rant, complain, condemn, or criticize. I think I do too much of that for myself already. This is simply a goal I’m setting for myself, to be less self-denigrating and to be kinder to myself. Maybe I should resume meditation. Maybe I need to create a new hobby. I don’t know precisely what I need to do. This is just another road I’m going to navigate in eighth grade.
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