A False Negative

Bunmi ❤
Bunmi ❤
Sep 6, 2018 · 3 min read

I often feel like people are too quick to judge me. They don’t understand my intentions, my tone in writing, or why I do the things I do. When I try to explain myself, people look at me funny. It’s almost like they are conveying to me nonverbally that they are not buying my story. The thing is, I don’t want you to buy anything. I just need you to understand and accept. This has led to a deep sadness, anxiety, and fear. I feel very trapped because of how controlled I am. This control definitely stems from culture. It impacts what I do and why I do the things I do. People will never try to understand my point of view. Instead they judge me. I think that’s what hurts the most.

In business there are things called false negatives and false positive. A false negative is when an employer believes an applicant is not qualified for the job when in fact they are. A false positive is when an employer believes a candidate is qualified when in fact they are not. In life, I feel like people have been treating me like a false negative. I’ve always felt that I am not good enough in the eyes of the world. I’m the girl people often forget about or skip over. I guess maybe that’s why I am so quiet. I don’t understand how I am supposed to succeed if people don’t give me a chance. Granted, I don’t believe success is dependent upon other people but I do believe that most success stories happen because someone gave the person a chance. I’d like people to see how hard I work. My friends definitely see it. My parents and professionals don’t. Dang it, I never stop working hard. Weekends? Forget about it, those are just extra days to work in my opinion. As a kid, while my friends were out partying, I was hitting the books. I never drank or did anything crazy. I was super focused.

In college, I took a course called entrepreneurial mangement. I was placed in a group consisting of all guys. From the beginning it was clear that they didn’t care about the course or this venture. Most of them never showed up to class. The in class group meetings consisted of me and one other person. I worked away during the meetings. Anyways, the group wanted to make a fitness app but our professor was highly against it. We didn’t have a clue as to how to develop an app. Everyone in the group checked out except for me. I met with the professor almost every week in order to construct a viable business plan, I did ample research on how to build an app without any coding, I was constantly texting the other people in the group to do their part and poured hours into an idea I didn’t care for. I was able to design a prototype of the app using Build Fire. People could see the app on their phones. I designed the logo, picked out a color scheme and made a tag line. It took me days to design this app. To be honest, I accidently became dedicated into something I wasn’t even a fan of to begin with. Now granted, I’m not asking for the whole world to give me an applause. I understand that hard work is apart of life. There are other people that work hard and maybe even harder than I. But doesn’t this account for something? There are many more stories like this in my back pocket. This has been me since grade school.

There is a heavy weight that hangs in my heart. It is keeping me from a lot of things. It is keeping me from being outgoing, being myself, sharing my opinions and taking risks. This heavy weight stems from childhood and fear. More details on that in another story. Honestly, I just need someone to take a chance on me. But at this rate, I think people are more confident in lottery tickets than they are in me.

I’m not going to throw in the towel yet. Although my heart is suffocating, I’ll do my best to stay alive. I once had a person say to me “Don’t give up and I won’t” but ironically the person gave up on me. I’ll keep my faith in the world and I will keep faith in myself. Besides, this is only the beginning.

Bunmi ❤

Written by

Bunmi ❤

Just a girl writing about whatever comes to mind or whatever is in my heart at that moment.