“I was born this way.” No, you’re not.
Have you ever felt that you were born this way? that this is just how you are? that people should accept you for who you are?
Yes, but not entirely.
Sure, we are all humans, we were born with certain traits. There are some things that you can’t change, for example : your background. But I think that saying that “I am like this, you should accept me for the way I am” is not entirely correct.
I am also like that. I always say that “I am childish and really clumsy. I was born in a family and environment different from you, so I wouldn’t know.”
Well, you see, when you reach a legal age, you are exposed to endless of information. You can explore the world and find out more about the world. Your personalities now and how you see the world is affected by your surroundings and family. When you’re older, you are going to find new friends and colleagues, you can exchange ideas with each other and you can gain a new perspective from them.
Let me give you an example. I am a really meticulous person and I always plan everything. If I don’t, I will become anxious.
This year, I met someone from work. We become really closer since then. I can say that we are really different, the only thing we have in common is our favorite food! But she’s the exact opposite of me, I am the type of person who if I have a deadline for tommorow by 10, I won’t sleep until I finished it, while she’s the type of person who will do it tomorrow at maybe 8.
Since we’re that different, I sometime ask her “Don’t you feel anxious if you haven’t finish your work? I mean, how can you go to sleep when you know you still have an assignment to do?”
Well, her answer surprise me. She answer “So what? so what if you haven’t finished your task? It’s not the end of the world. The worst thing that could happen is you will be scolded by your boss and that’s it.”
I remember feeling really shocked because I never think about that way. Maybe because I am a perfectionist myself, I always make sure to do things right and on time. If I don’t, I can stay up late just to make sure it’s all perfect. While my friend (this doesn’t mean that she doesn’t do her job well, she does it amazing!) thinks that sure your work is important, but your life is more important. You can’t give up a lot of time for your work only, you have to have a work life balance.
After knowing her perspective to work, I think I become more calm now. Usually I could be stressed if I haven’t finished my work, but now I rather calm. I think by knowing other people perspective about something could really open up our mind!
Like I always think, there’s no book on how to live life.
You can also learn more about life through endless of information in the internet. I just think about this after I clean the dishes. I mean, sure cleaning the dishes was just it. You take the sponge and then clean the dishes with the soap and that’s it!
But there are a lot of ways to do that. You can : rinse all the dishes first and then clean it with a soap and rinse it or rinse-clean-rinse and then rinse-clean-rinse the next dish or diluting the soap into the sink and clean the dish that way. I do the rinse-clean-rinse while my mom do the first. So which one is correct?
I didn’t learn how to do the dishes, my mind just automatically think that okay the purpose is to get the dish clean. There’s no rules of steps. But actually there are steps on how to do dishwashing easily!
You can easily type “how to do the dishes” and boom! The result will come out.
This is just some analogy that I just think. Sure, you can born with some traits, but that doesn’t mean you can’t improve yourself. That doesn’t mean that you can’t change, that doesn’t mean that you can be ignorance of some things.
If you’re born in a surroundings where people smokes and that makes you a smoker, you can learn how smoke affect your health and then decide it by yourself : do you want to continue be a smoker or not.
You can’t blame your surrounding for the way you act. It can affect you but you are given choices to change.
That’s all from me. Good day everyone!
