I'm reading Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (a woman, not a man). The main character is a completely insecure teenager with a full scholarship to a prep school. She does not feel like she fits in at all. By mistake she starts to fit in, when one of the boys asks her to give him a haircut and from there the whole school wants to use her for her talent.
Reading this book is hard for me, as I imagine it is for many people who have experienced rocky teenage years. Even if you're the popular girl, the jock, the most outgoing, you still have insecurities about yourself or feel like you have something to live up to and feel pressure from your peers.
I'm curious to know, and I never will get to because I'll die and either I'll come back as someone else who doesn't remember that I was curious, or will just die and that's that, but if I could remember I'd love to know if the world ever gets over feeling insecure, feeling competitive, feeling inadequate. It's just so unnecessary. What is the benefit of doubting my abilities? Of doubting my worth? Of doubting who I am and who I want to become, world be damned?
In my 30s I am beginning to care less what the rest of the world thinks of me, but I am frustrated when thinking back to all the time I wasted worrying what others thought. I think a conservative estimate is approximately 3 years of life, which brings me back into my 20s if I reclaim it! Wow. I'm in my 20s again! Hmm, do I want to be there? Probably not. OK, I'll leave those years alone.
2 comments:
The very best part of my thirties has been my new found ability to pay ABSOLUTELY NO ATTENTION to anyone's opinion but my own. It is profoundly liberating and I relish it daily.
It also makes me seem extremely cool to anyone under the age of 25, which is a side effect I didn't know about and am not sure I utilise responsibly. I have lots of fun, though. BWAH!
I feel you, once you reach your 30's you definitely start to come into your own.
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