by Bryan Wu
It’s hard to describe the who, what, and why’s of how we feel at times. Especially when we’ve become accustomed to living in such a dishonest way for so long. Even we start to believe our own lies. Our greatest emotional fears become realities and it seems the more we attempt to avoid these “things,” the more evident and realistic they become. Until we become aware, recognize, and nurture these feelings we have, we will be unable to release ourselves from the confining ropes of negativity, knotted within our minds.
As I sat there pretending to watch TV. I secretly observed them, not considering whether right or wrong, I judged them. I criticized their need to be perceived as intelligent as well as their use of complicated vocabulary. I assumed every story they depicted was in-fact fiction. I doubted the sentences still being formed, stumbling from their mouths. I despised them, carefully judged every aspect of their existence, which I found to be intriguing to me, desperately attempting to justify my own flaws and create some sort of mock comfort, to soothe my own fears. It was a pathetic attempt to ease the stress and anxiety, tangled within the cobwebs of lies and wrongdoings, in which has been my life.
Lying to people is an addiction that I know very well, an old habit, that for me has become a way of life. I’ve been comfortable and accustomed to living my life in complete dishonesty. I’ve always cared so much what people thought about me, mostly out of impulse and fear I created verbal costumes and stories that would camouflage me and my life into “ANYTHING”, as long as it wasn’t the truth.
It was an easy way I knew to deal with my emotions. It seemed to be satisfying enough so I continued to fill every area of my life with some sort of dishonesty. Throughout my life I’ve experimented with, what seems like, almost every shape and form of it there could be.
I now recognize this and am able to finally tell the truth about it. I’m able to be honest with myself and write it down with confidence. I actually find it to be very soothing for my mind, to know it’s another step to becoming a better version of myself.
Once I was able to open up and admit the errors I have, all that embarrassment and shame diminished. I think it turned into that stuff they call wisdom (in a sense). Those feelings of contentment and satisfaction I’ve been looking for, for the longest time, I found within myself. I spent so long looking for those feelings by doing all the wrong things. Today they are present in my life!
They’ve stamped me with strikes and felonies and continue to judge me based on the mistakes I’ve made in the past. That’s okay though. It’s all GOOD! I wouldn’t change one thing from my past. I’m not only accepting them, I’m cherishing them, all of them for what they are “mistakes.” They’re me. They’ve molded and chiseled me into the person I am today, ME!