1. 4
    Mar

    Surviving Yourself

    Last night, or I should really say this morning, around midnight (by the way, why do they call it midnight when it’s truly morning?), Taylor Cammack and I had a heart to heart conversation about blogging in the Flare lab. He told me that I am capable of blogging, I just needed to find a good topic. Today, it hit me like a Mac truck right in the middle of my work out.

    Quit worrying about other people. What they say, do, think or act like is their problem.

    By surviving yourself, I only mean overcoming the internal issues we all face in our minds about conflicts we have with ourselves. The biggest example I can think of at the moment concerns weight and body image (it’s the one that hit me so hard today during my session with Vic, the Rangerette personal trainer). As a Rangerette, I am constantly surrounded by girls who worry about gaining an extra ounce because they splurged on a sugar cookie for dessert during lunch. What if we get weighed in at practice? Is that one sugar cookie really going to make that much of a difference? To one weight conscious young woman, it just might. That one sugar cookie can cause her to believe that the one extra number showing on the scale was due to her bad decision, impacting the way she then thinks about the decisions she makes in life, causing her to believe that she is, indeed, a fat and terrible person.

    I realize that this snowball effect may seem like quite the exaggeration to you, but if you lived with the 72 girls that I do, you would know that it is not. How each girl in this dorm perceives each other is how they perceive themselves. The number on their weight contract defines who they are. It’s a vicious cycle of self destruction that can only be stopped when people stop caring about what others think and start caring about how they feel about themselves.

    On the flip side, when one girl stands up and says “Screw my weight contract, I want a honey butter chicken biscuit!” 15 other girls skip merrily along with her to the nearest Whataburger at 3 a.m. It’s all about following the crowd. Doing what someone else is doing, thinking what they think can be a dangerous trap to fall into.

    While there are many examples that come to mind when I think about the true trash talk that occurs when 73 girls live in one place, out of courtesy to the organization, I will refrain from posting any here. However, that is also part of the problem. When all you hear are negative things about yourself and other people, you start to believe them. The only true frame of reference one can use to judge yourself on is what you see when you look in the mirror and what you know in your head.

    When people say things that are totally out of line (it happens here on a daily basis), sometimes it’s best to just let it be. Sing it with me now, “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be” (http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/let-it-be-long-version/id263358079?i=263358119 <it’s the Across the Universe version :)>) OK, enough Beatles tunes, but you get my point…don’t sweat the small stuff. I know I’m not very good at taking my own advice, but for this one, I’m making an exception!

    I know that these are only mere rantings from a disgruntled 21-year-old, but I truly believe that after living through almost two years of dramatic encounters, useless arguments, countless sleepless nights and many, many talks with fellow disgruntled classmates (Oh, did I mention attending school and dancing for hours upon end?) I feel more than qualified to suggest that you should stop listening to all of the negativity and judgement and start focusing on what you want out of life and what you can do to make yourself the you you want to be. I’m not talking about a total life makeover– I’m just talking about tuning out the drama and taking the initiative to be constructive with your thoughts.

    If you promise to do it, I’ll try too.

avatar_96
Page 1 of 1

Following

See more stuff I like