This I Believe: No One Can Make You Feel Inferior

Every year at ESK, eighth grade students share their “This I Believe” essays with their fellow classmates during Chapel. Students are tasked with sharing a life lesson they have learned with the student body. According to the “This I Believe” organization website, students are encouraged to “start by telling a compelling story about how you came to hold an important personal belief—something that guides your daily living.” The talks are based on the “This I Believe” radio show hosted by Edward R. Murrow more than 50 years ago. Students all over the country – and the world – participate in the “This I Believe” project each year. ESK will feature several of these essays, including today’s from eighth grader Erin Conley.  

 

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

In ten words, Eleanor Roosevelt explained a concept that many people spend lifetimes trying to understand.  In ten words, she said it all: You have the right to control how others affect you. Their thoughts do not explain your worth.  In this form, dealing with  people is relatively easy.

The weekend, before October 19th my world began to crack. A few weeks earlier, Dorothy Joan McVerry Conley, my grandmother, became extremely sick and continued to decline. Although I acknowledged this mentally, it didn’t seem real. In my mind, I convinced myself that she would be fine.  I remember the summer before, on her 90th birthday when most of my family got together and celebrated with her.  The Thursday before the 19th, it was decided that my family would make the trip up to Memphis to see her.  Even then, it wasn’t real. We were simply going to visit family. That weekend was the most difficult few days that I had ever been through. On Monday, October 19th, I lost someone very dear to my heart. For days on end, I felt something that was deeper than sadness and twice as complicated. Guilt, remorse, pain, and sorrow took turns launching themselves at me.  But she wouldn’t have wanted that.

During that time, I realized something that I had never yet truly come to terms with. I had absolutely no control. I couldn’t do anything to stop the course of events, nor could I do anything to help. I was powerless. All of a sudden, it was apparent that as I was growing up, things around me were changing uncontrollably as well.

Do I now have less time to do the things that I love with the people I love? What if I am never ready to live on my own? What if the people I love leave me too soon?

Believe it or not, this period of time influenced me more than anything that any human being has ever said or done. When confronted with people and their negative opinions, while often difficult, you can control how they make you feel. You can’t control the events of the world around you. Therefore, controlling the effects of life itself is impossible. But that’s not true either.

As time went on, my world slowly put itself back together.  I began to realize that my grandmother had lived a wonderful life and that she is living a better life wherever she is now. Grandy believed that death was just another part of life, something that everyone will one day experience. The lessons that she has taught about loyalty, kindness and compassion will continue to live on as I remember the wonderful lady who loved a good glass of wine and even more so, the people around her.

However, my questions of fate still remain. Will my future fall into place? What if I’m never ready to grow up? These are things that I cannot, and never will be able to control. Controlling the effects of life is impossible, right? Wrong.

Although the course of our existence is up in the air and out of our hands, the way that this path affects your life depends on you. I will always be afraid of what comes ahead, but I refuse to let that fear control me. That small piece of negative emotion only needed the span of a few days to make me feel tiny, insignificant and completely helpless.

One cannot live trying to block out every negative feeling. No matter what you do, that feeling will never go away, but by perceiving it as something different, we can all change how it affects us.

My challenge to you is this: Never ever let anyone make you feel as if you are less than perfect.  Even more so, never let life grab your spirit and pull you through the motions. We all have a choice. Difficult as it is, the way that human beings live and exist in this world is determined by perception. Through my journey, I have learned that joy is a choice, a choice that can dictate the quality of my being. In my case, it also comes with relinquishing control.  Think of it this way: The more you pull the knot, the tighter it gets, and eventually it’s better to let go than to hold on. There are somethings that I will never ever be able to predict, and that’s that.

Above all, remember that not a thing in this world has the authority to mold you into anything that you are not. There is a choice. Nothing can ever make you feel inferior without your consent. This I believe.