Just got back from listening to a speaker talk about marketing yourself and the image you project. She asked us to write down a list of words we use to describe ourselves. It was all about image and goals. And I thought, What if you have no goals?
What if it takes so much to get through life that you can only take it one day at a time?
What if you have spent your whole life trying to be invisible because you have learned (not you think this might happen, you have actually learned, you have actually experienced, and repeatedly) that to draw attention to yourself is not good. You don't want to be noticed, because either you are a target for bullies or you are a target for disciplinary action that you don't quite understand. You don't want to be noticed by the opposite sex because you have learned where that leads, and it isn't to love. You don't want to be noticed by the same sex for the same reason.
What if you have spent your life living in fear? What if you have set goals only to fail at them? What if the things you count at successes the world laughs at because after all, those are things most people have achieved long before you? They aren't proper successes. What if you can't say what you really think? What if you have to hide all the time? To keep people at arms length, for their sake as well as yours because you know, you KNOW, that once they get to know you and see what you really are, they will turn on you. You KNOW this. It's not "academic." It's not "theory." To know that no matter how nice people seem to be, you know that there is always something that will make them turn. You may not know what it is, they may not know what it is, but you know that they will turn. And they will blame you for it.
What if you have never really been allowed to want something for yourself, but only given the illusion of choice. And when you say, this is what I want, you are given reasons why you should not want it or why you should not get it.
What if you have been allowed, time and time again, to think you are doing well on something only to find out you really haven't. Yet, somehow, you are supposed to project an image of self-confidence?
But these are questions that can't be asked in public, not in a setting like that.
What if it takes so much to get through life that you can only take it one day at a time?
What if you have spent your whole life trying to be invisible because you have learned (not you think this might happen, you have actually learned, you have actually experienced, and repeatedly) that to draw attention to yourself is not good. You don't want to be noticed, because either you are a target for bullies or you are a target for disciplinary action that you don't quite understand. You don't want to be noticed by the opposite sex because you have learned where that leads, and it isn't to love. You don't want to be noticed by the same sex for the same reason.
What if you have spent your life living in fear? What if you have set goals only to fail at them? What if the things you count at successes the world laughs at because after all, those are things most people have achieved long before you? They aren't proper successes. What if you can't say what you really think? What if you have to hide all the time? To keep people at arms length, for their sake as well as yours because you know, you KNOW, that once they get to know you and see what you really are, they will turn on you. You KNOW this. It's not "academic." It's not "theory." To know that no matter how nice people seem to be, you know that there is always something that will make them turn. You may not know what it is, they may not know what it is, but you know that they will turn. And they will blame you for it.
What if you have never really been allowed to want something for yourself, but only given the illusion of choice. And when you say, this is what I want, you are given reasons why you should not want it or why you should not get it.
What if you have been allowed, time and time again, to think you are doing well on something only to find out you really haven't. Yet, somehow, you are supposed to project an image of self-confidence?
But these are questions that can't be asked in public, not in a setting like that.
