Late last year, I came to realise that being on your own is not a bad thing, spending time on your own is actually a really lovely thing to do. It builds up your confidence, and it helps you to appreciate yourself more. It allows you to understand yourself and really have time to form your own opinions and views. At the start of this year, I made a 'resolution' of sorts to not ask things of people as much and learn to appreciate time on my own more. For me, this includes ruling out the aspects of my life which I let hurt me too much.One thing that I found really tricky was rejection, the feeling that no one is available or no one wanted to meet up or spend time with you. It's a really difficult thing to tackle, but I know that so many people struggle with this, as well as loneliness, which seems to be a direct outcome of rejection.
Being rejected isn't fun, but having put aside time for myself and having strenthened the confidence in myself recently, the feeling of loneliness associated with rejection has begun to disperse. The dissappointment which comes along with rejection is unlikely to ever change, because obviously you want to spend time with the person you asked to meet up, but the acceptance of the circumstances is something which I feel can be enhanced through increasing self appreciation.
If you begin to love yourself, if someone rejects you or can't/doesn't want to spend time with you, the dissappointment will not be as large. Being happy with yourself allows you to appreciate who you are without the reliance of other people to approve of who you are. You can just approve of yourself.
I feel that happiness should
not rely on others, your happiness should stem from your own ability to find the good in things. It shouldn't be the case that you are only happy with other people boosting your confidence, the aim should be to have your confidence boosted anyway and just spend time with others for the main reason of enjoyment.
It would be such a fantastic feeling to have such confidence that even if friends leave you, or if you don't achieve something you really wanted, you are ok, you still have the confidence to move on and know that you deserve better. Because most frequently, you do deserve better. Throughout school life, so many friends come and go, if you're anything like me, you are too caring and perhaps too forgiving, welcoming back the people that hurt you, particularly in their own times of struggle. Although, at times, this really tears me down, questioning what I've done to deserve such horrific treatment of people I thought were friends, overall, it has strengthened me. I can see now that the same people that were horrible to me, have done the same to others, and I then know it's not my issue but theirs. Being a caring person is not a bad thing, forgiving is not a bad thing, but relying on those people coming back is. Having the strength to welcome people back but being strong enough to feel confident in myself even if they leave again is an aim of mine. As a quote I saw on pinterest said: 'if you live for people's acceptance, you will die from their rejection', having solely relied on others for as far back as I remember, I've come to realise that this is why I was lonely, this is why rejection hurt so much. Feeling confident that you can live on your own is something that is necessary in everyone, else the rejection thrown at you throughout life, from friends, family and jobs will become far too much to handle.
I think self-appreciation isn't an idea which builds up ego but one that builds up strength to live in a society where rejection, unfortunately, is a common thing. It's necessary for everyone to have an extent of self-appreciation to survive such a harsh reality, and having lived for so long with little self-appreciation, it is clear now to see how important it is, and how much we all need it!
Fran x
