Pick your own words

You Can't Be Anything You Want To Be

      In elementary school, adults often say "You can be anything you want to be," and "With hard work and determination, anything is possible." By the time adolescents reach high school, most have figure out it was a lie. Not everyone who wants to become president can do so. The number of people who would like the position is large. Hundreds, maybe even thousands, would love to be president for one reason or another, but in a normal lifetime with a life expectancy of 78 (CDC 2010), the position will only be open 19 times. Since the president must be at least 35, only ten out of those 19 times would it actually be possible to run for the position. Generally, only two to three people make it to the election. You don't need to be a mathematician to realize that every child who dreams of being president one day won't be able to. No matter how determined the child is or how hard the child works, it won't matter.
      We as adults know this. I didn't write this to go on and on about how unlikely it is an individual will become president. The dream of being a president is just an easy example to understand the basic idea. What I really want to talk about is being yourself. In school and at home, one probably hears a hundred times that one can be anything they want to be. What about being oneself? A gay child in a strict traditional catholic family, may not be able to tell anyone about his sexuality. The person may end up marrying the opposite sex, having a family, and pretending to be "just like everyone else." Why? Survival. It's simple as that. That gay person will never be able to truly be his or herself. If we can supposedly "be anything we want to," then why is it that many of us can never be ourselves, at least not if we want to survive?
      I have mental disorders. I don't see mental disorders as being an "illness" or "disorder" or "disease." I see it as being a part of me. It's part of how I'm different from others. Just like hair color and height differ for everyone, I believe that sometimes, our brains are made different. The only reason some of us are considered sick in the mind is because society says we are. It's easier to label us as ill than to build a society that can accommodate everyone equally. My disorders are not my enemy, and yet, to survive and do what I want to do, I have had to make them my enemy. I have had to treat this part of me as my enemy. I have spent many long days trying to conquer the disorders. I am in a constant battle with a part of myself! Why? Because like most people, I have dreams. I have goals. And in order to survive in this society and achieve my goals, I have to. I have to walk around and try to pretend I'm just like everyone else. I have to learn to hide my problems. I have to hide a large part of myself and be someone I'm not.
        I don't want to be trapped. If I can be anything I want to be, why can't I be myself? Why can't I be the real me instead of hiding behind a mask all the time. Society doesn't expect everyone to be exactly the same. In general, society accepts that there are different hair colors, different eye colors, different personalities (to an extent). Society accepts some deviancy from the norm, but go to far, mentally or physically, and society is no longer made for you.You are wrong.
      Not everyone can be president. Not everyone can be an actor. Not everyone can be themselves, especially if they have dreams or goals. Now I can't say it's wrong or right. Maybe it's better for the grand master plan that some of us fight ourselves. Maybe it's how it has to be. There is no way for any of us to know. The only thing I am certain of, is that we can be absolutely certain of nothing. We are limited by instinct, by mental and physical barriers, by our eyes and ears, by simply being human. We see what we are able to and we build off of what existed previously. Maybe this isn't the conclusion that you expected. Perhaps you thought I would say society needs to change. Perhaps you think people should just stop telling children they can be anything. Lets face it though. Things can't be perfect. Humans will always lie one way or another. Human nature won't change. Society will take it's course and there is little anyone can do about it. I'm just giving you something to think about. Something to question. Come to your own conclusion.

The ignored ones

Some of the people on this earth are used to being forgotten about and ignored. We are used to people not informing us of things and being left out. We are used to never getting compliments even if we are trying our hardest. We are used to kinda fading into the background and treated like we don't even exist.

People like us get used to it. Sometimes, one will try to change it. One will try to make people remember him/her and include him/her, but eventually he or she will give up. Eventually he/she will realize, nothing he/she does will change it. Eventually he/she will get tired and we just accept it.
We get used to it.

There are those who say once you get used to something, it becomes easier. Well, I don't know that it makes it any easier. On one hand, we don't really expect people to notice us or include us. We don't have that expectation, so when they ignore us, we just accept it as being normal. It hurts that it is the normal, but it doesn't hurt when each individual does it because we expect them too. On the other hand, I think we all secretly want someone to surprise us. We want someone to exceed our expectations. I think many of us, especially the stubborn ones, keep listening and waiting, hoping someone will be different. It's not that they expect it, they just have a bit of hope. Secretly, I think we want to be noticed and remembered and informed and included. We want to feel like we exist and we are important. We just stopped expecting it.
When I think about it, I realize, I'm not really sure what I would do if I was included and noticed. I think I would be shocked and maybe a bit afraid. I wouldn't know what to do. I have become so used to the norm, that if anything else happened, I would be confused and overwhelmed. In some ways, maybe it's better that it never changes. One you get used to things always being a certain way, it becomes harder to deal with the idea of those things being different.
And then, there is still often the problem of being behind. Suppose I was invited to a party in college. Suppose I decided to actually go. (Completely hypothetical and probably completely unrealistic too but just go with it). I'm a junior. The closest I've come to a college party is being in my friends apartment with 8 of her other friends and just messing around. I don't really have any experience. So if I showed up to this party I would probably be awkward and unsure. Now if I was in high school or a freshman, it wouldn't be a big deal. That's when you are supposed to be awkward. But I have passed the time for awkwardness. So now I wouldn't fit in. People would think I was strange and wouldn't want to be around me. My point is, there is a time in life where everyone does something for the first time. They are usually awkward. But it's acceptable then because it's the norm. You have your first relationship usually in middle or highschool. It's acceptable and normal for things to be awkward and rocky. You have sex for the first time in your teens or twentys for most people. If you are awkward it's normal and acceptable. But what if you never had a relationship till you were 40. What if you never had sex. You are 40 years old. Most partners will think it's creepy or weird. They aren't likely to go for you. You have passed the time where it was okay to be awkward. Sorry for going on this whole psychology development speal but I'm just trying to make the point that, while I want to be included and noticed, at the same time, if it happened now, I don't know that it would really be good. For some things especially. Like if guys suddenly started noticing me and hitting on me. I'm 20. It's never really happened...unless online counts..I probably wouldn't even know what was going on. I wouldn't know how to respond. I would be completely embarressed. I would probably want to crawl under a rock and go back to being invisible. I mean secretly, I wish someone would notice me and stuff, I want to feel important and real for once. I want it to happen even if the moment it happens doesn't go so well, at least I can say hey it actually happened. At the same time though, I don't know how I would react. It's hard to explain because it's never happened so I don't really know. I do wish someone would exceed my expectations. I wish someone would include me and notice me. I wish I was lucky for once. But I'm also slightly afraid of it too.