Gossip: Haters Gonna Hate

My subject today will by no means be very different from what I have written about before. Maybe because this is something I'm slammed with constantly in this world where we inadvertently hate ourselves. I wish we didn't. I'm truly trying to learn to love myself and I've done a pretty good job and I'm happier. Because I have been able to make this huge change in my happiness, I know others can as well and I want them to more than anything. It's what I'm basing my education around, it's what I hope my career allows me to help people do, it's why I'm writing this. The world would be a better place if we all loved ourselves a little more.

This subject was triggered by this picture.

This is not okay. This meme acts like it's okay. Too many people think this whether they say it or not. This comes back around to my favorite psychological principle: projection! A term used to explain that we project  traits we dislike about ourselves onto other people. This is the main reason we do not like other people and it stems from not liking ourselves. Often times we don't realize we share the trait we are hating in someone else, in fact we sit there fuming and thinking "I would never do that!" when in fact we would and we do, and that is precisely why you hate it. If we don't recognize that, we wont change ourselves for the better, we'll just hate other people. Reflect on the people you know: maybe someone you know hates gossip more than anyone else you know. Do they gossip too? Maybe someone you know hates people who show off, do they show off too? You can tell a lot about a person by what bothers them, rubs them the wrong way, or what they hate. Because that is a reflection of who they are. This applies to everyone.

When I was sixteen, I was the girl who really hated gossip. I thought it was the most unfair thing, that people would say what they want without you there to defend yourself. I thought all the people who talked about me negatively when I wasn't around were the cruelest cowards. While all of this may have been true, I seemed to hate gossip more than most of my peers. I was also a gigantic gossiper. I seemed to do nothing else but criticize other people and I never confronted anyone. A year later when I was seventeen, the concept of projection was introduced to me. I challenged myself to stop being a hypocrite and to stop gossiping, no matter how much they gossiped about me. It took practice. A heaping butt load of practice! There were times when I caught myself in the act and I was able to abruptly stop. I realized soon that a part of not talking badly about other people meant I had to control my thoughts in addition to resisting the gossip itself. A year later I found myself defending everybody who was ever talked about badly around me, even if I agreed with what was being said. If I ever do say something mean, you can count on me to say it directly to your face.

The results were incredible. People trusted me. People believed I was good. People loved me. If I absolutely needed to get something off my chest, which I sometimes do, I would vent to my brother who was usually an out-group participant. The best part was I didn't hate everyone anymore. If they chose to say bad things about me, I didn't care. I knew the truth and that was all I needed. People rarely said bad things about me anyways because I gave them no reason to. I'm proud of myself for this change I made. Of course I'm not perfect and I still need to work on similar things now.

The point of sharing this story is to let you know you can do it too! If there is something you really don't like in other people, look at yourself and make an honest effort to not do that thing.

We live in a world where we feel like we have to act better than everyone else so we can be protected. If we act superior everyone will know we are better, right? No. This produces absolutely no good for you or anyone else. We shouldn't feel like we suck and everyone is better than us either. Rather we should realize that despite our differences, people are very similar. A few examples:

• We all have insecurities, even if some of us act like we don't (note: cockiness is a dead giveaway that someone is trying to cover a major insecurity). 
• We all have tough situations to deal with in life. Throughout everyone's lifetime we will all have roughly the same amount of hardships. A common misconception is assuming happy people don't have difficult things happen to them. This is simply not true, it is only their attitudes about their problems that make the difference, happy people learn from their hardships. 
• We all have something we can add to this world. We are not the same, we have unique talents and traits that allow us, at an individual level, to do things that no one else on this world can do.

I implore you to make a change today. If not for the sake of the world, do it for yourself. Pick whatever has been bothering you most about other people and put your best effort forward to never do that thing. I guarantee you will be happier, you will love yourself more, and others will be drawn to you. Don't allow that meme to trick you into thinking it's okay. It might be a true and honest concept, but it is not good. You are more than that, go out and prove it by loving yourself and others.

If you struggle with insecurities about your appearance, I wrote a post on that last July titled "What Is Beauty Anyway" if you would like to read that =) You can find it to your right at the top.

Marriage

Oh my! It's the "M" word! Let me just clear something up real fast: I am a 19 year old girl with an entire life ahead of me, I am not planning on getting married soon. But as a 19 year old, I have some older friends and marriage is this huge thing that is always surrounding me. People my age are going off and getting married. My older brothers and sisters talk about marriage (Getting married, engaged, divorced, etc.). I will admit, I'm already planning my FUTURE (did you catch the future part?) wedding. Among my mormon friends they are already stressing, in their mid twenties may I add, about getting to old to get married. And then there's always the weird stuff, like guys telling me why they would be good dads. I can't help it, when a guy is telling me why he'd be a good dad, it translates in my mind as "I want to have babies with you". Sorry, can't help it! Whether that's their intention or not.

 (On an unrelated note: I wonder how many lives in Africa were affected to make that monstrous thing?)

So yeah, marriage is this HUGE thing! And I have a couple of thoughts I'd like the share on the subject . . .

First of all! Pinterest. It's a wonderful place. I love it. However, the wedding section drives me insane. Partly because some of those "original" wedding ideas are no longer original if they are crawling all over the internet; everyone is going to have the same wedding with a few variations. But also because in the same wedding section, there are so many quotes and lists of what your man needs to be and what he needs to do before you marry him (i.e; hire a secret camera man to photograph your engagement, ask your dad and mom for your hand, be your best friend, etc.). Some of it is good advice, some of it is silly and not important and very unnecessary. My question is: where is all the stuff telling you who you need to be and what you need to do before you go off and get hitched? Where's that list? Cause I haven't found it. (I'm assuming the person reading this is a girl . . . bad assumption?)

I'm not at all saying we shouldn't keep our standards high for the men we marry, I simply want to know what the ladies are doing to deserve these great guys they are expecting. What are they doing?! We get what we are. You need to be amazing before you get something amazing.

I've come up with two main reasons I believe marriages fail.

In Psychology there is something called projection (look it up!). It is when we don't like something about ourselves, mostly subconsciously, but we see it in someone else. We project our flaws onto other people and it bothers us immensely (I've written about it on this blog under 'why hate taylor swift?'). This disliking of another person stems from not liking yourself; if you liked that part of yourself it wouldn't bother you coming from another person. People who don't like other people don't like them because they don't like themselves. This is the main reason relationships fail. It's the reason marriages fail. We blame others and tell them they need to change, when truthfully, we need to change just as much, if not more, than they do.

The second reason marriages fail is jealousy. Jealousy also stems from an insecurity within yourself. Either you aren't satisfied with who you are or what you have and you get jealous. Or you are not sure that you are worth not cheating on, which also leads to jealousy. Jealousy is the fear that someone else has something you feel you should have but don't.

My point is, relationships fail because of the individual. To be blunt, it is your fault. Yeah, the person you were with might be screwed up, but so are you. We get what we are. If you need to, disconnect from yourself for a moment and think about other people you know, your friends or your family, and their relationships and ask yourself if you believe this applies to them.If it applies to them, it applies to you too. It's a law of nature, what goes around comes around. We end up with people who are similar to us.

Now this is my philosophy: I'd like to share a dream of mine. I want to finish up college, have spectacular grades and a psych degree. I want to get a nice job, move into an apartment by myself, have a beautiful dog, and I want to be comfortably poor. I want to be alone. I will see people at work and have friends on the weekends. But ultimately I want to be completely alone. Just me and the dog. I want to go on walks alone. I want to eat alone. I want to read alone. I want to cry because I am alone. Because at the end of the day, you're alone anyways. And you always will be.

I've been called a cynic. But really, recognizing this makes you a much happier person! I want to be alone so I can learn to truly and completely love myself for exactly who I am. I want to be alone and be happy to be alone. I want this so bad that it makes if difficult for me to comprehend why anyone would want to get married before they are twenty five. If you'll recall my two reasons for failing relationships: projection and jealousy. With that logic it proves that it is simply impossible  to love anyone fully until you love yourself fully.

Divorce rate is up. We know this. And you can argue that it just went up because divorce became more acceptable and whatever, that's not the point. The point is marriage is failing. And it's failing because people are rushing into it. We are so afraid to be alone. But why? I'd rather be alone for a few years and love myself, then  find another person who truly loves himself, so we can love ourselves and each other together. Doesn't that just sound so much better than getting married and being with two people you don't really know or love (you and your spouse) then maybe even realize you'd rather be alone anyways (aka divorce)?

We expect certain things to happen in our lives. It might be the media or some innate human aspect that makes us want someone to come and love us completely, then through their love we can learn to love ourselves. This is not a reality. Because someone who would be able to love you completely would have to love themselves completely first, and in that case they would find someone similar to them, not some insecure whiner who feeds off of other people's opinions. Learn to love yourself. Be alone. Learn to love being alone. Don't settle.

I'm a nineteen year old sophomore in college with a lot of ideas and opinions. I am aware that I have very little credibility. But I have seen and experienced the world. I'm an observer. I wouldn't be spending my Saturday afternoon writing this down if I didn't believe it. 41% of marriages ended in divorce last year in the US. That's only first marriages, it's not even considering all the other years or all the people who stay together for the kids. If I were to leave you with a bit of advice it would be to not get married unless you can look at yourself and say with 100% confidence that you love yourself for who you are. You love yourself with all of your imperfections that you are working on and you are ready to love another person in the same way. Exactly the way they are. If you're already married then do this!

This is my dream. This is what I know is right for me. You might be an exception; you might already love yourself and not need time alone. But chances are, and statistics back me up, you are not the exception. I know that I'm not an exception. I depend on people a lot to feel good about myself. But I don't want that. So I'm changing it. My plan is to be able to love myself in the most complete way possible and to always continue working on being a better version of myself.  I am not expecting perfection. I know I have flaws and I know the person I marry will have flaws. That's alright. I'm not saying we need to silently submit to our flaws. The point of life is to become better. The person I marry will help me do that because they will love me.

I look forward to my marriage. I know it will be awesome. Because I will know I'm awesome, and he will know he's awesome, and together we will be as awesome as they come.