Backing yourself

I’ve always been a shy and nervous person, especially when I am meeting new people. I’ve never had faith in myself as being interesting enough to hold meaningul conversations or to have people long to be around me.

This lifelong affliction – for want of a better word – has crippled me many times and has caused me to make some rash and irrational decisions at certain times in my life. I have mentioned the fact that when I was growing up my Dad was constantly busy with his job during the week and then he was equally busy doing things around the house on weekends so we never really had any father-son chats about life and its challenges. Can I blame this ‘natural absence’ on my lack of self esteem and skewed self image? As I’ve gotten older and especially since I separated and got divorced, I have seen myself become stronger as a person within myself, more certain of things and even adopted a motto from a book I read which is “what other people think of me is none of my business.”

I read another quote very recently from Australian soccer coach Ange Postecoglou, the current manager of English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur. The writer of the article took the following quote from Ange’s book titled “Changing The Game”.

“You can only work at your full capacity in life when you disregard the consequences.”

After reading the article and taking time to reflect on those words, I ran the rule over my life and how I have always perceived myself and I soon realised that there is nothing in life – no matter how grim they may seem at the time – that could happen that cannot be conquered, and cannot be learnt from. From my own experiences, I wish that I had known in my teens what I know now, in that everything happens for a reason and whilst they might be hard to go through at the time they only make you stronger. Losing my younger sister to cancer, then losing one of my older brothers to homicide, then going through my separation and divorce – all of these experiences were hard on me emotionally, physically and psychologically. I would not wish these kinds of things on anyone. What they did do was to make me stronger within myself, to provide me with some psychological and emotional backbone, and I have come out the other side an even better person that I finally realised that I had been all the time. I deserved to be able to be comfortable to show my true self to the world, and let them decide if they wanted me around and not for me to make that decision for them.

I am now truly at a stage in life – both in age and after all my experiences – where I can face anything and see the positives and worth in any situation, good, bad or indifferent.

Now I truly back myself to be me, to be honest with myself and others – perhas to a fault – and for others to enjoy that if they see fit.