My Weathered Perspective

 I feel a certain level of sadness for cookie cutter Millenial kids.  It feels like they’re each living in a hellish little fish bowl, always worried about others’ perceptions of them. Perhaps that’s due to social media and how it’s made everyone’s private affairs a public spectacle. Or maybe it’s always been that way and my 44 years of life have colored my memory over time.

 Here’s how I addressed this issue with a particular youngster who is overly concerned with appearances:

“I don’t know if I’ve told you, but I’ve been through a lot. I wouldn’t have survived if my attitude was that of a contemporary twenty-something. And it’s not that I don’t care about how other people feel. I care very deeply, almost too deeply, about others.  It’s just that I don’t really care what people think of me. And quite frankly, other people’s opinions of me are not my business.

“Nobody gets to middle age without going through stuff.  My father died suddenly the same week that my marriage fell apart.  My daughter, who I carried for nine months, and loved with all my heart and soul, stopped talking to me and has hated me for 3 years.  After I lost everything and finally rebuilt my life, Hurricane Harvey robbed me of my new life and I had to rebuild again.

“The thing is that I still wake up every morning with a smile and go to bed with a smile.  I am a genuinely happy person despite all of that.  Because I have decided that if I focus on other people’s baggage, i.e. their shitty opinions, it will make me a bitter,  harsh, cruel person. And that’s not something I’m willing to be.

“So I look at these folks and feel nothing but pity. Because you have to be a very very sorry individual to judge or hurt another human being.  I try to treat every person who I come into contact with, with nothing but love.  And if they hurt me I don’t begrudge them that. Because that’s their baggage and I absolutely refuse to carry that.

“But make no mistake. I have no room for toxic people. I love those people from a distance.  Unless they’re paying me. Then they become clients.”

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