"the most important lesson i've learned over this past year is: don't let anybody make you cruel. no matter how bad you want to give the world a taste of its own medicine, it's never worth losing yourself."
bitterness is such a nasty feeling. it begins with an awful sinking feeling in your chest, making you wonder why your heart hurts so much. then it's usually followed by a tingling feeling in your body, making you want to scratch your skin open everywhere. your head starts to hurt because of all the thoughts clogging your mind. and then, suddenly, a switch: the tingling feeling gets your body hot, annoyance bursting in different places of your body. anger crawls its way to your neck, attaching itself to your throat, suffocating you.
why am i not good enough? why does everyone but me seem happy? why does this always happen to me? why does everyone hate me? i'm nice, right? i'm kind and honest and i try my best to please everyone around me. what the fuck is wrong with the world? why does nobody see me? am i invisible? i deserve to be happy, not them. i deserve love, not them. i deserve a pair of arms to engulf me when it gets hard. i deserve pats on my head to show appreciation. i deserve kind words and honest feelings. damn, i deserve it all. why do the people who are least deserving get everything they want handed to them on a silver platter? they're not kind, they're not thoughtful, they don't know what it's like to live your life for other people. they don't deserve love. they don't deserve honesty. they don't deserve happiness. i hate that. i hate them. i hate the world. i hate every single being on it. i hate how i put in so much effort and get nothing in return. why? why is this happening to me?
your head starts spinning, making you dizzy. every day when you step out of that front door, going to work or school, you regard this world with a permanent frown etched onto your face. whenever you see someone in love, or hanging around with friends, or having a good time with their family, your mind's already made up: they certainly don't deserve it, i do.
the question that now rises is: do you? with the way you're perceiving this world, the emotions and feelings in it. do you deserve to be happy?
see, bitterness is a feeling that leaves you entirely empty-handed. it gets you nowhere. bitterness won't affect anyone but you. that gnawing feeling inside of you will make you angry, annoyed and irritated, but often times you won't act on it because you're not ready to confront it. it doesn't enable you to make a change. you don't know where it came from and you don't want to know.
anger, hurt, sadness: they're all honest emotions that can put you into action. you can trace them back to their sources. bitterness only leaves you with more scars, hidden in a dark corner where you'll never be found because there's no one out there looking for you. pushing everything and everyone away , you may think that's a good idea. the only thing it does, however, is that it leaves you lonely, with a beast living inside of you to attack anyone who wants to make an entrance in your life.Ā
avoiding people, conflict and life won't make you more resilient; it will shut you off from the world and leave you with no reason to get out there anymore. yes, you'll be able to skip the bad moments, the hurt and the confusion but you won't experience the sweet moments either. you won't know the feeling of biting into ice cream on a terribly hot day, the feeling of rain on your skin, the sound of a child's laughter. don't rob yourself of that.Ā
forgiveness is one of the hardest concepts to grasp. it sounds so easy, but in reality forgiving someone is hard. it's also the only answer to that nasty feeling inside of you. forgive not only others, but also yourself. you're here because you matter. there are people on this planet that care about you, that love you. nothing is ever completely lost. get out there and look for it, whatever it is that you want to find. i'm sure your journey will be beautiful.