***DISCLAIMER***
I write to release. I share because I'm not foolish enough to believe that I'm the only one going through the mind wars I go through. In spite of how much I secretly want to be understood through my writing, I do not write looking for someone to reassure me that I am. Simply, I write to release. This blog is my release. Read at your own discretion.
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I've been hated.
Over the past few days, I've been heavily thinking about an experience I had in high school where I did something that made a friend disturbingly upset with me and my reaction to it that I cannot forget. Here's what happened:
Our high school choir was finishing up a concert at Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem. We were on the last song of the night which featured two soloists, myself and my aforementioned friend. After she sang her solo and I, mine, there was nothing left to do but some adlibs as the song vamped out. To my understanding at that time, it was perfectly fine for both soloists to tag team the adlibs and enjoy singing together at the end of the song. So, I decided that this time around (we had performed this song a number of times in the past), I would join my friend and sing with her on the adlibs. I sang one line and before I knew it, my friend, the other soloist, had put her microphone down and was storming out of the sanctuary in sheer anger. Completely confused, I proceeded downstairs after the concert was over to find my friend to find out if she was OK. Upon finding her, she looked at me with a piercing disdain and told me to get away from her. I had suddenly become some sort of predator who was out to get her and make her life hell. In that moment and for the next few days, she hated me.
I later discovered after talking with our music teacher that she was obviously upset that I didn't allow her the full space of the spotlight by singing my adlibs at the end of OUR song. He even made it seem like I was actually wrong for doing what I did and he spoke to me with a tone that said, "You dummy, you should have known not to do that."
A few days later, after not having spoken with my friend at all since the concert, the silent tension surfaced and we had a heated discussion in the music classroom about what had happened at the concert. I don't remember the details of the conversation but what I do remember and quite clearly is me saying, "I'm used to being hated. Everybody hates me." And I remember believing that about myself for a long period of time.
In my mind at that time, every instance of rejection, abandonment and disappointment I had ever experienced, fed my belief that I was hated. And being a person so full of love with not an ounce of hatred in his heart for anyone, but a genuine heart of compassion and understanding, I could not understand for the life of me, why I was "hated" by so many people. Something wasn't adding up. Either way, I didn't like this feeling. It SUCKED. The only person whose heart towards me I never had to question was my mother who had already been gone for five and a half years at the time of this occurrence. So in my mind, I was alone and because I felt loved by no one, by default, my perception was that I was hated by everyone.
*sigh*
Unfortunately, this feeling of being hated has to a certain extent defined a significant portion of my life. Granted, I am a strong person who has overcome quite a number of obstacles and there are very few things that I feel like I cannot do and/or deal with. Being hated, is one of the those things. The only reason this is, is because I HATE NO ONE. I have such a heart to love everybody just like Jesus did and the fact that people hated Him/hate me in spite of His/my loving them is torture-some to me. And I can't understand how if you reap what you sew and I've sown countless seeds of love, why am I reaping hate?? I mean, clearly I'm not perfect and I make plenty mistakes but my intentions are pure because I have a heart to love. Because I have for so long lacked the self-confidence that Jesus had, I did the only thing I knew how which has turned out to be extremely unhealthy for me: I have learned to micro-manage impressions.
For the next few years of my life, I did everything in my power to avoid the feeling of being hated, by all means necessary. I would go out of my way to take care of and satisfy other people in making sure they were happy with me for the simple purpose of avoiding being hated. I was even voted in my high school yearbook as Most Helpful because of the extent I was willing to go to, to make people happy with me. Ultimately, I lost every sense of my own identity and became defined by the things I did for people that would cause them to validate and affirm me for the goodness in my heart that would keep them from hating me. As a result of this, I literally lost any and every sense of self that could help me learn, love and accept me for who I am. I became a social puppet who controlled my own strings attached to making other people happy. As a result, I am miserable.
I'm at a place now in my life where I'm in a whirlwind of questions that I've not been able to find the answers to. I'm 25 years old and I remember determining at the beginning of this year (see my first blog entry below) that I wasn't going to allow myself to remain in my own way of my success but that I would embrace the possibilities of my future and walk it out starting in this my 25th year of life. The year is almost over and in a couple months, I'll be 26 and I've realized that I'm STUCK in the same position because I'm still more focused on making OTHER PEOPLE happy than I am with making myself happy and pursuing my OWN dreams. And I am miserable.
I am full of dreams, visions, desires and plans and I have come so close to seeing some of them materialize but they haven't because my attention is more on pleasing others than pleasing myself. Don't get me wrong, with my life I have a responsibility to please God and I have devoted my entire life to doing so, but I realize that my priorities are a little out of whack. Behind pleasing God, my focus has been on pleasing others even to the point of literally losing myself to satisfy and exceed people's expectations of me. And I have been taken advantage of. People and organizations I have worked tirelessly for have minimally appreciated me and it's not their fault. It's my own. You teach people how to treat you. I have taught them that it's OK to expect the world of me and that I will deliver and exceed their expectations, get this: FOR NO PAY. All I wanted was some sort of their affirmation and most times, I didn't even get that. So I end up giving ALL of me for NOTHING in return. This is a problem and it needs to be resolved.
Something has to change. Time is not on my side and I have too much work to do to be doing nothing for myself. I want to see MY dreams come true. I want my visions to materialize. I want to own something for myself and my future family. Most importantly, I want to be happy; independent of any and everyone else. Herein lies my new journey: The Journey of ME. If this offends you or makes you call me arrogant, cocky, selfish or whatever, YOU deal with it. It's no longer my problem. It's MY time to shine.
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