Growing Down
I am quite idealistic when I was young.
At my teens, I was amazed at the discipline and order in the military life.
At 15, I decided to pursue a degree in nautical studies. When things didn’t go my way, I tried again when I was in college by trying to pass the PMA entrance exam. Blessed enough, I was selected at the top 600 of the 23,000 aspirants during that time. Quite a feat, yet i failed to join the top 270.
That was my first failed major exam. Usually, I may not be at the top but surely I’ll never be left behind - but not that time.
I’m a loser. I can’t accept defeat. And most of the time, I back-off not because I failed, but because I’m afraid to try.
But life was designed exactly that way. Failures and successes go hand in hand. We can never have every thing perfect… It’s either we’ll be disappointed or be disappointed more.
And so I choose not to be disappointed by growing down. I remove expectations, and just do things as I ought to do and hold my OWN self responsible for it. No more, no less.
I surely received a number of accolades, but honestly I forgot the count how many. I’m fully aware that when I would start counting appreciation and criticism, am building up wastes. I was bullied when I was a kid… If I would allows myself to get affected by what the other people are thinking of me, I should be dead by now.
No one believes me then. As I’ve said, I’ve grown up a loser. Sometimes, I am tempted to think that “if they’ve only given me a chance” it could have been better.
But I struggled to get off the blame from other people. I am what I think I am.
The secret of life is contentment and the thought of “it could have been worse”.
We can pursue what we desire, but at the end of the day, only what’s on our hands are available for us to enjoy… we can choose to discard that though, and live in misery and pain of loss.
Growing down is to look down at what you’ve got, instead of what you should have. By doing so, your level of understanding grows but your expectation shrinks.
Don’t complain. Don’t whine. Don’t live in the praises of other men… they will just disappoint you. It fades. It doesn’t last long. Today, those people will speak well of you, the next day they are the same people who will throw dirt at you. If you receive praises, pass it on to God. If you receive disapproval, fine tune your attitude towards it.
Now having said that, let me said this: We can only hold ourselves responsible and only we, are accountable of our actions. We can not take back what we’ve done and what other people would say about it. So we must be sure that whatever stuffs we do, it doesn’t worth regretting for.
Only then we can discover what true happiness is all about.
Contentment.
