Next time you're giving someone ”advises” or telling someone what "right", please reconsider what you're actually saying, or rather, what you're doing to them.
When I was a kid, the idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up, was nothing like what I actually want today. Naturally kids just have these cute and funny things that they want to be when they grow up.
That's typical firemen, policemen, astronauts, popstars or you know.. stuff like that.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be a farmer, because I loved animals, and I really wanted a cow!
And that's it. That's all you prepare for as a small kid, and that's fine.
My mom and dad just thought it was funny, and ofcourse supported this because after all, if was just a cute childs dream.
But it's because of this dream that my love and interest for animals grew, and I started reading alot of books about them. At some point, I just grew away from the farmer-dream. But imagine if my parents would have said that being a farmer was a bad idea. Maybe I wouldn't have liked animals this much today. Or at least never got that interested in them.
As I grew, I started getting different kinds of interests, and since you're kept asked all the time ”what do you wanna be when you grow up” i kinda ”needed” this idea of what I actually wanted to be.
I remember at some point, I told my friends that I wanted to be an animal psychologist. More specifically a dog psychologist. By that, I meant that I wanted to work with the animals behaviors and be able to figure out why the animal would behave in a certain way, and then know what to do, to train to do as it's supposed to.
My friends started making fun of me. They joked about how I would try to talk to 'stupid' animals like goldfish's, and thought that was very funny for quite some time. I laughed at it too. Surely, they were only kidding. But it weren't really that funny.
I told my mom, because she would understand!
Instead I got this: ”It's very hard to be an animal psychologist, you would have to go for a specific animal, you would need this and this kind of grades, and this kind of education, and it's really hard. But sure, good idea”
- Yeah, that didn't sound very encouraging. And no matter what my mom meant with this, she made it sound like ”this is too hard for you. It's probably not fun anyway”.
Especially for a little child that didn't know better.
So I slowly forgot about this idea.. It was probably too hard for me to do anyway, right?
This is just one example.. It's basicly been like this, everytime i came up with an idea of what I might wanted to be, when I grew up. Same thing would always happen. It was either a funny object for friends to make fun of, or it was too hard, risky, probably no fun at all, and had a bad salary according to family.
Ever since me and my sister was kids, I remember my aunt always telling us to grow up as hairdresser, so she could get her hair done for free. At that point, I couldn't care less about hair. But guess what! That changed... Alot!
I told my mom that I would consider being a hairdresser if I couldn't find anything else I wanted to do. Then I was told that that was a great idea BUT … Yeah .. fucking but...
You'd had to stand up all day, family and friends would probably ask you to do alot of unpaid jobs, the salary isn’t really that great, and is that really what you wanna do with your life?
Just shut up .. Seriously.
As an ”almost adult” I'm old enough to say to myself: I'm not going to listen to these people, I wanna do what I wanna do. And I'm not gonna do that anymore for sure, but I hope you get my point! As a kid, you don't really know better, and it's goint to be planted in your head, because things you learn in your childhood will stick to you. It will always kinda be there back in your head telling you: “Whatever you think is a good idea, is a bad idea”
Imagine if people had just said ”that's sounds good, I think YOU would like that. ”
Maybe I would be on my way, becoming an animal psychologist right now. Maybe not, but atleast I wouldn't have the memories of a broken dream.
I probably wouldn't be in a state of panic right now, because this is the age were I need to figure out what I wanna do, but have no fucking clue, because no matter who you go to, there's always a fucking but..
I'm not only talking about jobs. I'm talking about all sorts of things that could have been a great idea, something you're happy about, or something you think you're good at. Thank you for ruining all that with a ”but”, or pointing out that what ever you do, someone will always be better than you, and it's not really good enough.
Next time you wanna advise someone.. Please, think about what you're saying..
I understand if it's a completely retarded idea that can only end up wrong..
But don't question peoples dreams, and self-esteem with a 'but'.. (haaah .. butt .. )
Sometimes a ”that's sounds great”, “that seems like a good idea FOR YOU”, “You're good at that” or a “good for you”, is the most helpful thing to say..
I apologize for any grammatically incorrect words or sentences that might be. I wrote this very quickly in the middle of the night, and I don't care.
I could have made this blog longer and more detailed but.. Meh, I wanna do something that makes me smile now :)
My next blog is gonna be about “being positive” I think .. Atleast that's what I have in mind for now, because, not long ago, I realized how much I actually like to smile. And I will be smiling much more from now on... I hope :D
Luvs, Emi <3
Nom nom !
