Prevail

” It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.”
~ Buddha

The days you ponder…

Sitting on buses when I was younger, I remember looking at girls older than me and wondering…what kind of life do they have? Saying to myself, I bet they have everything, they had nice skin (which I was desperate for), looked like they had a purpose, they seemed so mature and beautiful. I would put them in a nice house, with a boyfriend, an exciting job and probably loads of friends. I was always in awe of them and they ticked all the boxes, I had been told I needed to tick. I couldn’t wait to be older.

And today, I see young girls looking at me, I wonder if they wonder the same thing. And I want to go to them and just say, don’t grow up too fast and worry about this perfect life. A perfect life, isn’t fitting into what people make you think is normal, it’s not the expectations put on you or people making you think you are not enough. I, for sure have not ticked all those boxes and have not yet found my purpose in life. I have made many friends and lost many friends. I am always making mistakes and trying to learn from them. I have not reached the pinnacle of my being and I still have a lot of work to do.

The idea that you turn a year or decade older and with it, all the things in life fall into place, is probably one of the biggest misconceptions for me. It doesn’t work by age limits, it works on where you are within your mind-set at a certain part of your life. Now this mind-set, shouldn’t be judged at whatever place or state it might be at. You couldn’t compare it to someone you think ‘has it all together’. The exterior has the tendency to show to the world what the person, is maybe trying really hard to work on, in their jumbled mind. But in reality, they feel like a deer in headlights. 

There will be struggles

I want to tell this little girl, I am still trying to figure it out, to make peace with the fact that life is full of going up and down. Even, as I have been writing over the last couple of months there are times I have had to push myself to keep staying on this path of trying to make a better me. The amount of times, I wanted to sit back and just say ‘I am done’, as it all just becomes too much, when you keep trying to strive and you feel like you are making it at  snail pace. The times, you think the world is just zooming past you and you are stuck in slo-mo mode. When you turn your head and 3 more people are pregnant or getting married.

It sometimes becomes direr, when you realise that people are only congratulated for things which are really out of your control. You can’t make someone want to/or marry you. You also cannot always dictate when you can bear a child. It’s like the times you take a driving test, you can put into motion all the right behaviours and actions but if on the day something/s comes out of the blue and take you off course or you cannot react in time and you fail that test.

It may just be me, but I also find that because of the sheer pressure placed on these milestones and the way in which society makes you feel that you now belong to something. It can make those people who have signed the marriage certificate or had children to feel that they are superior. They start acting different or treating you different. Because you don’t fit in this club which they are now VIP members of. Just ends up being another thing you don’t feel part of.

Just be you

To that girl who was looking at me on the bus, with what I think may be some of the same thoughts as I had. I want you to…

Know that it is more important to do what you want, than worry about what other people may think of you.

Make sure you celebrate your own successes, even if others don’t deem them to be anything.

Retain your individuality, especially during a time in which, things we wouldn’t even know we had to perfect are now mainstream and made to feel like the norm.

Establish yourself before you mount this quest to find someone who will love and cherish you, because if you don’t love and cherish yourself then no one else really will.

Don’t let this looming clock, stunt you from thinking you have missed the time in which, what you desire can be achieved.

The world is full of oysters

There will plenty of times you may not feel like you belong on you are so far behind but in reality this is something that has been constructed. You are right where you need to be, as daunting or painful as it may be. Out of all the situations and journeys you are within, they are there for you to learn more about you.

For the amount of times you always question yourself, think about the times you have had the resolve to pick yourself up and carry on. You are a powerful entity and you will take on the world in footsteps shaped uniquely as your own, don’t tread lightly because you can make a difference in whatever way you decide.

I, go into the New Year, not with resolutions but with more tools to ensure I continue to make this journey to slowly become the person I want to be. Understanding this person whose skin; I am so aware of but the insides, I am trying to figure out. I would like you all to think about ways in which you could level up and achieve more because ultimately in the words (loosely) of the WWII veteran Harry Billinge “…If you don’t move you will rust…”