Greetings one and all. If there is an all out there? Hello...? Anyone? I kid, I kid. So I have an extra long blog post to make up for the fact that it's been a good 3 or 4 months since I last posted. Enjoy! Thoughts, comments, opinions are mucho appreciated!
What is the root of all evil? Most
of you are thinking something along the lines of Satan. This is very correct.
Or sin perhaps… which you are also right again. But I believe right up there
with the worst evils is "overthinking." Who’s done it? We all have. Without a
doubt, I can guarantee you that you’ve done it. If you’re needing a reminder,
let me refresh your memory. Today you probably rethought your outfit at least
five times. Did you say it was going to be a bum day and that you didn’t care? That’s
highly commendable, but how many times did you think about how horrible you
looked, who would see you, or what they would think about your outfit? That’s
just the first case of overthinking. I think we can all agree that there has
been numerous times when you start to completely overthink a situation where
absolutely nothing went wrong. Why do women constantly do this? I’m not saying
I’m innocent…. I know from firsthand experience that the simplest thing can
send us all into a frenzy. If someone doesn’t send back a good enough laugh,
maybe looks at you in an indifferent way, or even just says hello in a mild
tone, sometimes we go into hyperactive mode, thinking of all the scenarios in
the past weeks wondering what could have possibly gone wrong. I’m extremely
guilty in this way. I start to wonder if I passed them the salt too slowly or
perhaps my last laugh sounded like an elephant getting over a cold.
Overthinking creates a huge sense of paranoia and often just makes things
worse. The more you think something is wrong, the weirder you begin to act. The
weirder you begin to act, the more the other person notices, which just creates
an atmosphere of awkwardness and then you’re both sitting there wondering what
the hell went wrong and how to fix it. We’ll get to that in a minute. Before
that I’d like to address the worst effect of overthinking which is…. (Drum roll
please)… comparison.
Oh what a dangerous game to play.
But it’s an instinct isn’t it? I think we can all acknowledge that since the
age of 5, we began to know this feeling.
First we played with Barbies, (actually my sister and I played with
plastic animals more than Barbies, don’t ask me why) and then we watched Disney
Princess movies. Around the age of 8, that’s when I began to get frustrated.
Granted, I mainly got frustrated with Barbies because fitting their arms and legs
through sleeves was quite a tedious process, in which I would get red in the
face and beg my mom to help me. Beside
the point, we have been set up with these high and unrealistic examples of
women ever since the beginning. At first we were oblivious. We were introduced
to the ideal woman’s shape with Barbies and Disney princesses at young age.
This isn’t to say that Disney movies weren’t a good influence, because all the
princesses taught a good moral lesson, but many times people ignore the substance
and purely take in appearances. They were all thin, beautiful, and perfect. In
the beginning stages of watching these movies, I don’t think most of us noticed
the difference of fantasy characters and real people. The dancing silverware
was funny and entertaining and who didn’t want to ride on a magic carpet? But these
movies, dolls, magazines, etc. presented us all with an unrealistic idea of
beauty. It has been ingrained into our heads and even though beauty comes in
all shapes, personalities, and looks, we all still have those set credentials
lingering in our thoughts. Because of this, we will always look at others and
wonder why we can’t look like them or be envious of what they have. This warps
our thoughts, and leads to resentment and other drastic actions. You see a
girl, a lot of the times one of your friends, and notice that boys like her
more than the average person; this angers you. Or she has longer, silkier hair.
Or has had more boyfriends, has better clothes, better makeup, legs, eyes, blah
blah blah blah. Tell me one thing. How is thinking about this helping? Is it
making you prettier? Is it making her uglier? Are you suddenly gaining all the things
that she has and you don’t? The point I’m trying to make is that comparison and
the jealous questions you ask along with it make no difference. In fact they
just make it harder to like who you are and who that girl is. And it will
ALWAYS be this way. You have to remember that you are you. And that is the best
way to be. There are things that you excel in or that you can rock, that she
probably couldn’t. We’ve all got little quirks that make us more likeable. Pretending
to be someone else is boring and quite frankly a waste of time. You’ll never be
that person and I believe it is better to be yourself without giving any
apologies for it. Why waste your life acting like someone? You won’t even be
getting paid for it.
So…. How do we stop reading into
the fact that a boy didn’t respond back to a text? Or that he wrote on her wall
instead of yours? Easier said than done, but don’t think about it. Don’t look
at his facebook. Don’t look at her facebook. Enjoy life and don’t dwell on the
other people’s relationships. Look at yours and be PROUD of them. Don’t compare
yourself to other people… it is a never-ending merry-go-round of
dissatisfaction. A close friend of mine once told me that it didn’t matter if
someone didn’t like me, because I was loved by so many others and that’s all
that mattered. Remember that. Being yourself and being genuine is the most cliché
advice you can probably ever be given. But if you are yourself without worrying
what others think, other people will love you for you and not because you’re
trying to be “that girl.” And with knowing you are loved for being original,
isn’t that the best kind of feeling?
