It May Be You

People are not always against us, it may just be us.

Do you ever wonder?

Why we hardly ever get what we want? Or why things are hard for us most of the time? Or why people don't have a positive reaction to us? Or why opportunities rarely come our way?

Has it ever occurred to you that perhaps it may be you? Yep, we may be the one sabotaging our own progress.

When I lived in California my son's teacher told me he wasn't working on the level he should have been and I dismissed his teacher as someone who didn't know what she was talking about. My attitude was, 'Didn't she know my son was advanced? Who did she think she was telling me he should be retained? How dare she. This was my genius little boy. She wasn't around when he said all the advanced things at home or how he was able to figure out things his dad or I couldn't. She didn't have a clue."

After I left California and moved to South Carolina, I started hearing some of the same things from his new teachers. 'He's a good kid, but he can work harder, and he's a class clown.' 'Huh? Work harder? Class clown?' This can't be.

Yet I had to face the truth.

The teachers in California didn't plot against my son with the teachers in South Carolina. There was no conspiracy against him. There was no covert operation to stop him. There was no top secret manifesto to hinder his growth. There was no clandestine mission to retain him or treat him unfairly to stop his progress. It was him. He wasn't working to his capacity and he should have been retained in kindergarten like the teacher in California recommended. He would have been a better overall student for it. Yet I was too naïve and too prideful to know the difference. Eventually he did push through it, but not without having to play catch up with other unnecessary struggles, which were in large part my fault. When I finally accepted the reality, I was able to put things in place at home that helped him become successful and I worked with his wonderful teachers to make him accountable. It was a constant challenge and it wasn't easy. Thankfully he was able to make up for those deficiencies and is now in college with a great GPA.

Why are you always the odd man out?

What we may be going through may not be due to anyone who is against us or any system that is trying to stop us.

Maybe it's our own negative attitude, maybe it's our lack of initiative because we never try anything new, maybe it's our constant complaining, maybe it's the music we listen to that gets in our system, maybe we watch the same shows that make us believe we're right and everyone else is wrong. Maybe maybe maybe.

Perhaps it's time for us to change instead of thinking everyone else should. How can it possibly be the world against us? The world doesn't know us. The world is caught up in their own things, their own life. If our approach changes and we remain consistent in positive change, then opportunities may open up for us. We need to ask ourselves, would I want to hang out with me? 

Let's look inside ourselves as we realize that if the same issues follow us, then it's a high probability that it's not everyone else, it's more than likely us, just as it was my son. Let's just face that it may be us who's holding ourselves back. 

The good news is that we can indeed get what we want, but not without doing the hard work first and that means looking at ourselves for real. Considering, good people want to help good people, good people want to work with good people, and good people want to live with good people, we will find there are good people who want to cheer for us. They want to help us, but we have to help ourselves first. No one else can (or should) do it for us.

There can exist a new us, but it must start with us.

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