They say that what doesnt break you, makes you stronger. I have carried this idea around in my head as long as I could remember. "dont cry, be strong" was my father's constant refrain. I learn at a young age, that crying was a sign of weakness, and conditioned to think that I was stronger than crying.
I went for many years of my childhood and significant part of my adulthood without crying, always believing that I was above crying. tough situations happened, but I did not shed tears. I trembled inside, stressed panicked, often having nervous breakdowns within, but not cracking outside. All that stress I accumulated, only made me a nervous person, unable to feel vulnerable to myself, let alone outsiders.
The very first time i failed an engineering subject, was my first heavy loss. I had never failed a subject, it was a huge blow. I knew I did not do well, but I really did not think I did so poorly as to be repeating the examination a second time. the memory of how my father reacted left a deep impact on me. He was jovial and light hearted about it. He brushed it off, saying that everyone fails at least a subject a semester in engineering, it is not the end of the world. I learnt that failure is not the end of life, nor does it define me. yet over time, the more i failed, the more I tried to reassure myself that failure does not define me. the problem with that complacent denial was that making bad choices now has an excuse. The effect being that risk and reward are not weighed properly to determine the right amount of effort to give to a task.
as an adult, I check myself when I apply this law. Yes, the outcome does not define your worth as a person, but the effort you make for something you decide to commit for, does. The reward is immaterial compared to the sincerity of purpose. when you make half hearted effort, and hope for the best, you are already setting yourself up for a delusion that perhaps luck will favor you and the outcome will be favorable. What a disservice to do to yourself!
Now I am in middle age, in forties. by that measure I have lived half my lifetime, half of which was as an immature child , without enough weight to my decisions and efforts. Realistically, a quarter of my life has passed for me to have no excuse but my own dedication.
Where am I going with this? I forgot.
I married a man who ended up being a bean counter. One who measures success by outcomes, and uses that to belittle, undercut and invalidate me. such men exist, but this was not a choice foisted on me. He was a choice i made, when I misread the red flags, deluding myself into a trap.
My mistake? I miscalculated the size of the flag. I overestimated the size of the green flags and underestimated the size of the red flags. I told myself I could convert this man and make the green overwhelm the red flags. I did not read the backwardness, or the conservative attitudes of those around him. I thought I found a diamond in the rough, but diamonds seldom show up in the dust. By nature, they are hard to find, harder to unearth. Lazy, wishful thinking struck again.
Here I am now, exhausted by a lifetime of poor decisions, life meandering into nothingness, all potential wasted.
Now, I weep for my lifetime of thinking that what doesn't break me, makes me stronger. I am weaker, diminished, living vicariously through the others, hoping my children will learn from my sad decisions and do what I did not.
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