Finding Freedom From My Thoughts
“Why do they hate me?”, I whispered to God with tears streaming down my face. I knew I did nothing wrong and even then, these girls wanted to make my life a living hell. They ridiculed me to the point of feeling worthless. They made fun of my hair, clothing, the way I walked, the people I was friends with, and the list goes on and on. Every cruel word felt like a punch in the stomach. In those moments, I had to make a choice. I could be bitter towards these girls or I could choose to be compassionate. “The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in” (Wallace 7).
David Foster Wallace, author of the speech “This is Water” describes this process of learning how to think. In it he states, “. . . …show more content…
In it he says, “And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship-be it J.C. or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles-is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive” (10). For me, that “anything else” was acceptance. I’ve always cared about what people thought of me, but it wasn’t until Junior High, when my flaws were being thrown in my face, that I started to worship acceptance from my peers. I tried so hard to be someone that pleased everyone, but that person was not me. I acted and dressed differently. I started to turn into the girls, I promised myself I would never become. I convinced myself that if I pretended to be the person that everyone liked, I would be happy and everything would be okay. I craved approval. This ate me alive because I depended on people to deliver my happiness and meaning in life, and of course, humans fail, a lot. Even though I was usually surrounded by friends, I always felt lonely and I knew I could only turn to
“Why do they hate me?”, I whispered to God with tears streaming down my face. I knew I did nothing wrong and even then, these girls wanted to make my life a living hell. They ridiculed me to the point of feeling worthless. They made fun of my hair, clothing, the way I walked, the people I was friends with, and the list goes on and on. Every cruel word felt like a punch in the stomach. In those moments, I had to make a choice. I could be bitter towards these girls or I could choose to be compassionate. “The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in” (Wallace 7).
David Foster Wallace, author of the speech “This is Water” describes this process of learning how to think. In it he states, “. . . …show more content…
In it he says, “And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship-be it J.C. or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles-is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive” (10). For me, that “anything else” was acceptance. I’ve always cared about what people thought of me, but it wasn’t until Junior High, when my flaws were being thrown in my face, that I started to worship acceptance from my peers. I tried so hard to be someone that pleased everyone, but that person was not me. I acted and dressed differently. I started to turn into the girls, I promised myself I would never become. I convinced myself that if I pretended to be the person that everyone liked, I would be happy and everything would be okay. I craved approval. This ate me alive because I depended on people to deliver my happiness and meaning in life, and of course, humans fail, a lot. Even though I was usually surrounded by friends, I always felt lonely and I knew I could only turn to