Just about everything I've heard from the people around me half my life has turned out to be untrue. Sure, not everything, but a great deal of it. I was told that if I finish university, I can get any job I choose. I was taught that girls should be calm and polite, and that they have to wait for their “prince to come”; otherwise, they’ll be alone and in despair. I was told that the world is a friendly place, full of people who are willing to help and solve all my problems. Overall, all these maxims proved to be false, and I had to face with this fact on my own.
As it turns out, this world is not that good. Sure, some privileged people — like a rich family, for example — may believe our planet is like a true heaven on earth; yet I don’t consider it to be true. There are crimes and inequality, generalized poverty and violence. While factories are killing the planet, our presidents are killing people in wars. Corporations are gathering our data, waiting for the moment to sell it to other corporations. We’ve endured COVID, and now some of us are enduring inflation, low wages, health problems, the list goes on. So what are the chances that we can hold onto our sanity in the world as it is now? Don’t ask me.
To put it another way, believing in the notion of a "friendly world” seems ridiculous to me today. What can I say—not the happiest news. All that said, I don’t mean that we should to give up and watch as our world deteriorates, eating popcorn and making ironic comments about the futility of it all. It’s not really worth it to sink into despair and wait for our end to come on this planet. What I suggest is quite the opposite — we need to learn to live even with a complete lack of resources, and by that I mean to learn how to rely on ourselves.
Was I happy when I figured out that the world was not going to shower me with rainbows and unicorns? Not at all. Was I frustrated when it turned out that the people around me couldn’t answer the question of how I should live my life? Of course I was. Even though many of them have trouble understanding how they should live their own lives. Long story short, at a certain point it became very/abundantly clear to me that no one except me really cares about my future. In fact, not only does nobody care, but some of the people back then were deliberately trying to keep me from having a happy life. With that said, I could have become a depressed, unfriendly person. Fortunately, somehow I didn’t.
Realizing that people don’t care that much about me made me reconsider my values and attitudes toward life. I stopped dreaming of magical helpers who would come and solve all my problems; instead, I started thinking about ways of creating the life that I want on my own. At the end of the day, if we don't care about ourselves, who will?
No doubt, it takes a great deal of courage to admit that our lives depend only on ourselves. But without realizing that, we're doomed to repeat our mistakes and be chronically dissatisfied. We can’t stop other people from doing the things they do, nor can we force them to do something about our happiness. All the same, shifting our focus from others to ourselves and committing to taking responsibility for our lives is one thing we can do. Do I know how to deal with all my problems and dilemmas? Maybe I know how to tackle all my troubles and doubts? The answer is no. But at least I don’t try to hand all of them to somebody else.
Having found ourselves in a place of frustration, we’re still able to look inside and find the courage to act against this emotion, and live according to our convictions. Even when we're at the point of exhaustion, we’re still able to believe in our intentions and face daily obstacles with a smile. Even in the face of harsh life experiences, many are still hoping to improve their lives, and we should praise them — and ourselves — for our hard work. Accepting our imperfections and limited resources may mean suffering from this reality, but by doing this, we're definitely also embracing ourselves and learning to draw strength from inside, as well as from each other.
