Lately I’ve been yearning to develop the habit of proving people right than proving them wrong.
It’s simple, really.
Too often we allow ourselves to be surrounded with people who would rather see us fail, and not always in the little ways. Some of them have abandoned the idea of playing fair long ago, and so they try their best every single time to give you hell. Because you’re smart, or you’re funny, or you remind them of themselves or you don’t. Because you’re driven and ready and you won’t take no for an answer, even while they’re elbow-deep in your mouth pushing your throat so that it won’t be able to say with conviction, “I can! I will!”
They will see everything wrong with you, and you will start to wonder if there’s anything in you that’s even good at all.
“Prove them wrong ,” you think as you slave your way through hundreds of hurdles, always seeing each accomplishment as a reason to gloat and tell yourself you’re better.
“Prove them wrong,” you mutter as you close your eyes and suppress the need to have your heart leap out of your mouth as you sprint, you jump, or you dive.
“Prove them wrong. Prove them wrong. Prove them wrong.”
After all, there’s nothing like realizing you’re better than what you’re given credit for.
Recently, though, I feel as if life has taken quite a twist. Or maybe I have.
Because recently I’ve realized that having to prove people wrong meant I was surrounding myself with people who was actually sure I was going to fail; after all, what else would I be proving wrong? The idea of success? Of reaching my dreams? Of finishing my first race or getting good grades?
I’ve learned, then, that while there is value in proving people wrong (hell, sometimes it’s great to prove yourself wrong… and it’s always nice to simultaneously be proud and humbled of that fact), there’s an even greater value in proving people right: in their affirmations and in their ability to see beyond the things you can even see for yourself.
Oftentimes when things are bleak and reason has scuttled over to the side to make way for brash decisions, it’s the people whom we want to prove right that we look to.
Those who believed in you. Those who actually did the wacky crazy thing and put their trust in what you can achieve. Those who said that if someone is capable of doing something worth believing, that someone is the same person doing it.
They told you you were good, and nice, and that you would do far great things. They told you (as they cradle their coffee mugs or rummage through their collections of books or look at you with dreamy eyes) that you will be happy, and successful, and you will achieve your dreams.
They told you (perhaps not as straightforwardly, perhaps not as eloquent, perhaps a little differently) that you will change the world, and that people will remember what you’ve done.
They told you all this.
And if you prove them right, then you’ve proven to be an even more amazing person than you give yourself credit for.
Of perpetual finds 