I'm not sure if it has anything to do with me being a woman, or just being human, but when it comes to giving others recognition, or trying to veer away from saying negative things about someone, it's hard as hell. I try my best to lift others up, but when it comes right down to it, I fall short every other time.
In my Women and Leadership class, we were asked to participate in a 30 day experiment where we try to only say positive things about other women and then record them in a journal. Easy enough, right? Wrong. After walking out of my class, I lasted maybe thirty minutes before I spouted off some smart remark about another girl. Being competetive my entire life, it really bugged me that I had already been defeated. I had imagined maybe going two days, then failing, but no... thirty minutes, and I was finished. However, when I sat down to really think about this challenge we had been given, I realized that it wasn't supposed to be easy, otherwise there's no point. Because we live in a society dominated by the ideology that we must be better than the rest, we use this mindset in every aspect of our lives, even if it is against some innocent stranger.
As I sit and reflect on the negative things that I've said or thought about these people, some I would consider friends, others not at all, it really hurts me to know that I allowed myself to say such harsh comments. AND, to top it off, most of the time it was to make myself feel better. I mean, how pathetic does that sound? Really pathetic. When I really think about, I'm such a hypocrite. I constantly profess that we should be kind to others and speak with good intentions, yet I fall in the trap too. I don't want to be that person who is constantly bashing others because when I really step back and think about it, what good does that bring me in the end? We're all just trying to be successful and live life with fervor and purpose.
