Your Worst Enemy Is You

(Photo by thom♥)

Who'd have thunk it?

I know it sounds like another cliché straight out of every self-help book or article that ever existed ever, but bear with me. It's been a while (as in years) since I wrote anything and to be honest with you I was a bit worried that I won't feel inspired to write again. That's not to say that nothing in my life happened that was worth writing about. In fact I tried getting the gears in my head going a few times, but I was either too tired or bored to write. I just wasn't there. Now, finally, here I am about to do something that hopefully doesn't resemble word vomit as much as the previous stuff that I've done (already self-criticising so early on – your worst enemy is you, folks).

They say that your twenties are some of the most significant if not best years of your life. Whoever 'they' are, they're not wrong. I definitely feel like a lot of major changes happened after reaching my twenties, and this is something that I've always tried to reflect upon, even write about. After everything that's happened in the past couple years or so, the one thing that stood out to me the most is how hard I often am to myself, and that's putting it lightly. It's one thing to tell yourself that you need to do better; to be better. But it's a whole other thing to allow yourself to engage in self-destructive thoughts and mask them as pointers for self-improvement. Unfortunately, it took me a while to fully recognise this.

Most of the time they manifested in the form of self-blame and, sometimes, self-hate. A few months ago I found myself in a toxic relationship, but more so in a way that I was toxic towards myself. I blamed myself for every single 'bad' thing that happened (I say 'bad' because a lot of them stemmed from my anxiety, which I will talk about eventually) and honestly, I was at my worst. Granted, the person I was with at the time didn't make things any easier, but I would rather spare you the details. It's not like I wasn't conscious of what I was doing either. If there was anything that I admired about myself it would be the extent of my self-awareness, but I guess that can be both good and bad. For some reason, I chose to believe that everything was my fault because that way I knew that I needed to work on myself. And it's always better to focus on what you need to improve on, right? Again, there are two very different things happening here.

As you might expect, this affected more than just my relationships. After graduating last year (yes, I finally did after writing about it so much), I felt myself enter some kind of metaphorical void. I had no idea where I was going or what I was doing anything for. Of course that was something that I had anticipated – very symptomatic of 'the twenties syndrome' – but it's still strange to actually be experiencing it. To put matters into context, I turned down an interview for a job that would have probably been the start of a pretty decent career. I had a couple of reasons for this. First, I wasn't sure if it was something that I was prepared to commit myself to. By that I mean I wasn't sure if it was even a career path that I was genuinely interested in. Second, I thought that I would be absolutely garbage at the job, and that made me feel uneasy. Now you might be thinking, "That's silly! This and that and other reasons why I should have done the interview!" I know, I know. I let my insecurities stop me from stepping out of my comfort zone, and I gave myself hell for it. For a good while I regretted my decision. I was convinced that I made the biggest mistake and no better opportunity will ever come my way.

That's the thing though, isn't it? I feel as though we have an almost reflexive tendency to undermine ourselves. The way I justify this to myself is: if someone rejected me or pointed out my flaws, at least I already know about them. And therefore if something goes wrong, I only have myself to blame. I have struggled with my self-esteem all my life and the funny thing is, I have said it so much that it's starting to sound like an excuse. As though having self-esteem issues is an excuse for treating yourself like you're less than others, or telling yourself that you will never amount to anything. If you're reading this, chances are you're going through a similar situation and I apologise. I really don't mean to be so dramatic.

I did not write this to say that I'm some reformed person and that somehow I've discovered the trick to having all the confidence in the world. I am writing this as a full realisation of the fact that we need to give ourselves a break every now and then. While it is important to acknowledge our weaknesses, it is just as important to practise self-compassion and understand that it is okay to fail and make mistakes and not have everything figured out. Recognise how powerful our mind is and how easily we can let our negative thoughts take over and convince us of things that are often false. Most of all, I am writing this as a step towards forgiving myself, in hopes of encouraging others to do the same. How's that for a comeback?

Take care of yourself.