I grew up in a small ‘city’ and we
went to a small church, which I still go to, till date. So basically everyone knows
everyone and you can’t do something without your neighbour knowing about it. I
remember how I had this view of how all the elders in our church were ‘judgy’
and as time passed by, I started to develop an ‘I don’t care about what you
think of me since all you do is pick my mistakes’ attitude, which, looking back, can make you quite destructive.
But here is the thing about me: I am
very very sensitive. Things easily get to me. I do well with positive criticism
and all, but if you tear me down and be negative, I kid you not, I will
probably have a good cry after. Sometimes you could be having a bad day and you
just kinda raise your voice at me, and I will seriously crumble (I know, I know
*hides*). I will replay words said, over and over again. If it’s through a
text, I will read it and it will hurt like you’re pulling a knife through me,
till I feel that I’ve had enough of the pain and delete it. Put simply: Ndine wopepela. I can act all tough and
cool about it in your face for a minute but I’ll probably be dying for some
alone time to cry about it. Luckily, this doesn’t happen often (Thank you,
Jesus!).
To be honest, I would lie if I said
I don’t admire people who are so strong, people who get bullied online, for
example, but they just.. don’t care.. *gasps!* Like, how does one just learn to
IGNORE all this negativity? I have seen how mean people can be on social media.
I seriously don’t know how they can just decide to turn all that negativity
into positivity and just.. do them. Sometimes, even have all these handy little witty replies that would take me a gazillion years to come up with. That kinda strength really interests me.
So back to this attitude I
developed. I started to try to not care. Remember I just said how things get to
me so easily. I have, for a very long time, tried to say I don’t care what
people think about me; “I will do me, you do you” and all those little empowering
quotes you can think of. But I have learnt to finally admit that I do care, but I am more selective of what
to care about.
One thing that I noticed about the people
I thought were ‘judgy’ is that, their stories kinda carried some truth in it.
Always. Maybe not entirely, because they were uncertain, but there was a very
common thing, which was an element of truth. Another thing I learnt as time
passed was the fact that these people DID have my best interest at heart. They
really just wanted me to do well, and not to necessarily get me into trouble. They
meant well. They were surprised that I could behave in such a way, and would
always try to get me straightened up and wanted to see me on the right path.
But then again, not all criticism is
constructive. This is something I learnt from the music project I just did. Some people
would criticize my work with no basis, no positivity, and I could tell all they
wanted was to break me. I have something against people who are quick to criticize
but offer no solutions at all. I am always against such kind of criticism.
Well, I got some of those. And it made me have a tough skin as time went by. At
first it could take hours to just let it go… I would replay their words in my
head over and over again and feel so inferior, but I told myself just how useless it all was. I could
have used that time to think about important things… like cheese.
I am one person that loves laughing.
I laugh at everything and anything at anytime. I do love good jokes. But some
jokes, they just go a little too far. Some jokes are just attacks, on the real.
I feel that sometimes we don’t even take time to think about how the other
person is gonna feel when we say some of these things, all in the name of banter.
Constant ‘jokes’ about one’s physical appearance for instance, or something they
did in the past which was talked about privately. Those are not really things
you can throw around in the name of jokes.
All in all, I think we have
developed an ‘I don’t care what other’s think about me’ attitude that, to some extent, makes us blind to
some helpful advice we could have received, by someone who really had your best
interest at heart. That said, some words said are just set out to hurt you. So some of
us have our tears too close (misonzi
yapafupi lol) and we easily have a good cry even if we sometimes try to act
all strong and cool.
I realise just how jumbled up my
thoughts were in this post, and I was unorganised, but I hope you got a thing
or two from all this mumbo-jumbo. Maybe this may help:
· It’s okay to not be able
to take criticism well. Hashtag Team sensitive (and proud?)
·
Not all criticism is set
out to harm you. Filter them and take the important bits, then use them to
better yourself. Remember, your reputation matters.
·
Please do not be shy
about crying. It heals. I don’t know about you, but I always feel 1000x better
after a cry and it makes moving on easier. It’s like closure to me.
·
Ignore all the
negativity especially when you’re SURE the person doesn’t have your best
interest at heart or doesn’t even know your story.
·
Be mindful of little
jokes you say, because some people can easily get offended and worse still,
they are not brave enough to tell you, so you may think it’s just alright. Try
imagining how you would feel if a person ‘joked’ about the same thing to you.
·
I am a wimp
Anyway, I wrote this because I
remembered when I was a kid, I overheard some women who were supposed to be
my mum’s friends, talking about how I always do the same ugly hairstyle. It
hurt me so much, and I had a cry in my aunt’s bathroom for some minutes. Now
that I’m older, I think this is the kind of talk I just had to ignore. My hair
was adorable :).
–If
they don’t know you personally, don’t take it personal.
-Ephesians 4:29- Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
-When
we are born, we cry. And sometimes, when we cry, we are born again.
–There’s a quote I read once but I can’t seem to
remember it clearly, so I will try to paraphrase it.. “Sometimes, criticism from the right person is better than a
compliment.” It was obviously worded better than this but I hope you get
the point.