As human beings we have the ability to find the faults
in those around us. This ability makes it easy to pick apart the lives and
dreams of others when we have no faith in our own. Why do people find solace by
tearing down someone’s ideas? Why do we make it our mission to destroy the
dreams of another? Basic human nature regulates that people discourage the
dreams of their friends because they lack faith in their own dreams, don’t want
to see their friends get hurt, and sometimes they just can’t understand the
dreams of someone else other than their own.
Where does faith come from? Faith comes from the
belief of there being a higher power beyond our own comprehension. When
humanity has faith it gives them the strength to follow their dreams. However,
people tend to discourage others because they have no faith in their dreams.
When people don’t have any faith it means nothing can motivate them. In my
sophomore year of high school I competed in a public speaking competition for
Future Business Leaders of America. After continuously working for months to
prepare a speech by myself, I was devastated to find out that I didn’t win.
When the opportunity came to participate again in my junior year I didn’t have
any faith that I would do better this time. The first time I worked so hard to
do my best only to have it thrown back in my face and whenever I thought about
trying again, I kept finding reasons to stop. For a while I didn’t believe in
myself, but with time and shaky faith I competed again and this time I won. At
that point in my life I lacked motivation in my own dreams so there was no way
I could encourage my friends to go for what they wanted. Somehow I believed
that since I couldn’t achieve my dreams then there was no way my friends could
achieve theirs either. Not having faith indicates not believing in a greater
power like God. Church teaches us to believe that God can symbolize destiny.
Destiny meaning that everything happens for a reason. This is why most people use God as a
motivational tool to guide them in the right direction, while others deny the
concept of faith altogether much like my aunt Ruth. Aunt Ruth tends to believe
that she and only she controls her destiny. In her mind there are no
coincidences or explanations and the only faith she has is in herself. She
doesn’t realize that God affects our decisions more than we know. Having faith
in something stronger than ourselves propels people forward, but with her it
only seems to have made her clueless. She has all this faith in herself, yet
has done nothing to accomplish her dreams. Not having faith in something
stronger is much like aimlessly walking through life without a clear sense of
direction. It’s hypothesized that these same feelings can lead to insecurities.
Life’s about taking risks in order to try something new, but when people become
insecure they become afraid to take those risks. A former friend of mine named
Michelle never could figure out what she wanted to do for the rest of her life
so she studied everything she possibly could. One time it was cooking, next
business, then art, and finally writing. She studied almost everything, yet
when opportunities came to turn them into careers she never took the chance.
She always found reasons why she wasn’t good enough or why she wouldn’t be good
at anything even though she studied everything. Nevertheless, insecurity
mentally destroys people from the inside. It makes them afraid to take risks
and even doubt the criticism from others. Whether or not people believe it
criticism can do more harm than good in the mind of someone suffering do to
their insecurities. Take my friend Jennifer for instance who is a fantastic
artist, although every time her work is critiqued she loses all confidence in
herself. Even if the critique’s minor she is ready to demolish her art work.
She’s always been insecure about everything she does especially when it comes
to her painting, even when it’s perfect she can’t help but feel like everyone
hates it. Her insecurities keep her from accepting the opinions of others which
could likely help her in the future. Everyone knows that the world isn’t a
perfect place and some will have good or bad days more than another. When
people start accepting that there’s nothing they can do to change their life
they become cynical. My older brother Darrell is now in his thirties, but
growing up the world reduced him to the stereotypical black male. Some of his
teachers at one point thought that he would turn to drugs and gang violence
like some of his classmates, yet he didn’t let their cynicism stop him. He
wasn’t going to let society put a label on him so he worked his hardest and
sacrificed some of his own happiness to take care of the family. Currently he’s
working hard to finish school then own his own funeral home in Miami. Unlike
him, my aunt Ruth has completely given up in everything she once believed in.
In the past few years I’ve noticed that every time someone mentioned what they
wanted out of life she would become cold and cynical. Even with me and the rest
of the family she discourages our dreams because she’s slowly realized that she
wasn’t able to accomplish any of hers. She accepted her failures which is
similar to destroying her own goals. When someone does that they are left with
nothing than what they started with.
Do we hurt each other on purpose or is it
coincidental? Humanity argues that we hurt each other because there’s always a
tiny hint of satisfaction at seeing someone else fail. Others disagree saying
that it’s not about wanting someone to fail rather than wanting to protect them
from outcomes that we perceive as difficult or dangerous. It’s simply human
nature to want to shield our friends and peers from getting hurt. This is why
people discourage their friends and peers from their dreams out of fear. Fear
makes me people afraid to see their friends get hurt or in another case do better
than them. I have two friends named Bianca and Chelsea. Both were amazing
volleyball players back in high school, but Bianca was always a little better
than her. Before our senior year both had the same dream of becoming volleyball
captain for the varsity team. During their practices I began noticing that
Chelsea would put down Bianca skills whenever she had the chance, knowing she
was better. Chelsea was terrified of losing to one of her close friends so she
put down Bianca’s dream so that she wouldn’t succeed. Being friends with
someone means encouraging them but somewhere inside of ourselves lies the deep
seeded fear that our friends just might be better than us. Sometimes they might
even surpass us in accomplishments that one day we hoped to achieve. Another
part of fear lies in competition; fear makes people afraid to lose especially
to a friend. Win or lose people become competitive because everyone wants to do
their absolute best, yet when someone loses against a friend it can be
devastating on the person and the relationship. Take for instance, two of my
friends Roger and Stephan who competed against each other in high school for a
full ride scholarship. The winner had to write about four to six essays on
different topics in order to win. Now Roger believed deeply that his writing
was flawless and that there was no way he wouldn’t win, although when the
winner was announced it was Stephan. Roger was so angry that he never spoke to
Stephan again and still today the two haven’t spoken. Losing against a friend
not only destroyed their relationship, but it also made Roger doubt his own
writing skills. After fear then comes experiencing failure first hand. Some
people can brush failure off easily, yet it can take a toll on others. A former
friend of mine named Nora us to compete in Future Business Leaders of America
with me, but her category was marketing. She was very smart and loved to work
with numbers so she put her all into the competition and like my first time,
she lost also. Unlike me, when she had the opportunity to compete again she
didn’t want to. Since she didn’t win the first time she felt like trying again
would be pointless because she was supposed to be great with numbers yet she
lost. This one particular failure changed her, made her feel like she wasn’t
smart enough in the one thing she loved. It is painful to feel hurt ourselves,
but even worse to watch our friends experience it so we discourage them only to
protect them. It only takes one failure to make people doubt themselves and
everything they do. For a while after my first lost in public speaking I
doubted my own abilities. When people would say that I was good, I would brush
it off to them simply being nice or wanting to make me feel better. It took me
months to get over the failure because losing does hurt, but it made me change
and get better so that next time I competed I would win. While people change
for the better sometimes it could be for the worst. My Aunt Ruth finally realized
that she hadn’t accomplished any of the dreams that she once had which changed
her. It’s like she’s completely given up on life because she no longer has any
passion. I could honestly say that the only passion she has now is for making
everyone else just as miserable as her. Now change is inevitable; it happens
whether we want it to or not, yet the main reason we try to keep our friends
from experiencing it is because of what could possibly happen to them. Change
sometimes incorporates with losing a friend. Every so often with change comes
whether or not we can handle the loss of a friend do to our emotions. A long
time ago I lost one of my very first friend Marnie because we disagreed on
different things. After years of living in the same neighborhood together,
Marnie began to act like she was too good for the same people she had grown up
with. She didn’t care about the community or the people in it and she just
wanted to be rid of them. This is where we disagreed because even though bad
things did happen, there were too many good memories to leave behind. We
disagreed on that until it became the argument that ruined a friendship; we
haven’t spoken in seven years. Everything that has happened didn’t stem from
people wanting to hurt their friends rather than to protect them. We don’t try
to hurt our friends on purpose; we try to keep them safe in an unsafe world.
Why do we let our own judgement cloud the reasoning’s
of another person? Everyone is entitled to their own dreams just like they are
entitled to their own opinions. People tend to discourage the dreams of their
friends and peers because they can’t understand the dreams of another beyond
their own. When someone first talks about their plans or dreams it can make
someone else skeptical while others don’t believe at all. People simply do this
out of confusion. When a person first hears an idea they don’t understand they
immediately cut off what the other person is saying. They become confused and
disbelieving because they didn’t listen enough to really understand what the
person’s trying to say. One of my close friend Bo has a dream of being a
fashion buyer in the future and for the life of me I can’t understand why she
would want to waste her life doing that. She has told me many times that she
has a passion for fashion yet I don’t believe she should do that. She’s too
smart to waste her life doing that and because I’ve never taken the moment to
really listen to her dreams then I can never understand why she wants that.
People all have crazy unexplainable reasons for why they want to do certain
things however, people cannot understand those reasons because they don’t put
themselves in their friend’s shoes. Again with Bo as much as I love her I feel
her dreams are a waste of true potential. I can’t understand why she wants
certain things because I can’t put myself in her shoes. I can’t function my
brain to think how she thinks because we are two different people. As her
friend I can only watch as she tries to make her dreams come true, still I tend
to discourage her in the hopes that she will do something greater beyond
fashion. Whenever people don’t believe in someone’s dream they stop encouraging
them altogether instead they start saying that their dreams are only dreams and
that they should stay that way as doubt turns to disagreement. Disagreement
arises from people thinking they know what’s best for someone rather than
trusting that person’s opinion. During the summer my mother and I disagreed on
what I should do about my plans for college. She wanted me to focus on only one
thing while going to school, while I wanted to focus on several different
things. I understand that she is my mother and has made most of my decisions
for me during my life, but this one time I wanted to control what I did with my
life. I will always respect her opinions, but I wish she would respect mine and
let me decide what’s right. As soon as people hear something in their mind they
have already formed an opinion as to why someone is possibly wrong. A former
law teacher from high school once told me that no one ever listens because
they’re too busy forming an opinion. Every piece of advice I’ve gotten from
someone who thinks they know what I should do with my life, I honestly believe
they haven’t listened to me well enough. They’re not focusing on what I want
because they are too busy trying to convince me otherwise. There are so many
people in the world judging one another that they end up discouraging someone
else’s dreams. My same former high school law teacher automatically assumed
that because I was good that law would be the perfect career for me in the
future. I agreed with her on that, but that didn’t meant that I only wanted to
focus on that for the rest of my life. I have other things that I wanted to
study, plenty of other careers that I wanted to dabble in but she had made up
her mind that law was perfect. I know that she didn’t mean any harm in what she
said it’s just the fact she never took the moment to just let me explain my
dreams. It’s that same kind of arrogance that make people discourage the dreams
of someone else when they don’t understand. My entire life has been filled with
friends, family and so many other people giving me advice. They all heard about
what I wanted to do but they never listened. Listening and hearing are two
different things that are missing in today’s society. Everyone’s too busy
giving their own advice that they don’t realize their crushing another
person’s dreams.
Being human makes it easy to find the faults in
others. Human nature signifies that we presume to know everything. We break
down the dreams of someone else because we think we know what the difference
between right and wrong is. People make it their mission to destroy the dreams
of another because as humans we believe that if we can control the destiny of
another somehow it will make ours better.
*Copyright Nakki White, 11/25/2015
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