i recently read in an article off of yahoo about how the gen-Yers are referred to as the "My Life Sucks" generation. know why? cause we complain. about everything. like the enormous debt recent grads are in, the lack of decent jobs to pay for student loans, but mostly how hard it is going to be to get that so-called American Dream: homeowner, debt-free, able to take family vacations, and spend a small fortune every holiday season on our loved ones. we are cursed--cursed with the inability to settle for less. our parents wanted a better life for us, and a lot of us got it. well, most parents wanted that. some, like mine, handed their kids off another family.
at least that's how i feel. which is why i want more than what i had growing up. i can't remember a time when we weren't struggling to pay for something. sure, things would stable for a while, but there was always something that came up and drained the savings. growing up with a little less made me appreciate everything I have of course, and i've learned how to live lean. but i want more for the future. i want to be able to give back to those who have helped me through the years. and i need to prove that i can do more than what was expected of me. that is my biggest motivator.
i think i was about 9 or 10 years old. my step-grandmother and i were the only ones home that saturday afternoon. i believe i was finishing up the dishes (the dishes were my household chore since I was 7), and must have put something away wrong or some other stupid, insignificant mistake. All of a sudden, she's yelling at me. again. this was before i learned i had a voice of my own, so i just stood there memorizing patterns in the cracked tile flooring. after nearly 5 years of this, i had learned to tune her out, which just made her yell longer. But she got my attention with this line:
"If you keep up with behavior like this, I'd be surprised if you make it to age 16."
here i was thinking i just did the dishes wrong, and now i'm finding out this may lead to death? what kind of bomb is this to drop on a 10 year old? i was reminded about this premonition all the way up to her placing my sister and me in foster care a few months later. she supported it by making me read magazine articles about teenagers who were homeless and had everything they owned in a black trash bag. she reinforced her dream for me by making my sister and i use trash bags to carry our stuff to the foster care agency.
i was not a bad kid, i did every tedious task she asked of me. nothing was ever enough. she was impossible to please. i considered it a good day if she had nothing to say to me. and i could never figure out why she hated me so much.
so that is MY motivator.
i see nothing wrong with wanting a better life for me and my future family.
i see nothing wrong with proving her wrong.
yes, life kinda sucks right now. i'm between jobs, in an insane amount of debt, not living on my own, without a car, and i am still struggling with what i actually want to do with my life. i have such a deep fear of failure. but my sister told me something the other day,
"You only fail when you stop trying."
so that's the hope for the day: keep trying. do NOT let those who want you to fail control what you do today. it's your life, your call.
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