Don't belittle, Be wiser.
This title can be interpreted in many ways. Don't belittle yourself, be wiser. Don't belittle others, be wiser. Maybe that says something about yourself the way you personally take it. When someone belittles you, and puts you down, you can start to belittle yourself and put yourself down too. Especially if self doubt already wracks that brain of yours.
Today I experienced this first hand. Sitting in a full classroom, trying to understand the complexity of equations in chemistry, a boy stands upright in front of all the people sitting before him with a small practice exam booklet in his hand. I noticed it straight away, the scrawled hand writing staining the lines, it was mine. Before I could claim possession to it, he speaks to the row in front of me. This row including everyone who understands everything I don't, and is bound to be passing the exam with flying colours.
“Does this belong to any of you, I'm not sure why I'm asking you, the booklet isn't great and I don't expect it to be yours, you're way to clever to be writing this kind of stuff, but is it anyone's here?”
Suddenly I lost my voice. It felt too embarrassing to claim any sort of possession to anything to make me look less intelligent and successful than I felt. Especially in front of a class full of people when in life all I've wanted to do is draw attention away from myself. Everything I felt like id learnt and felt confident about just left me.
But I just thought why? It was such a minor comment from someone who didn't mean to hurt me or didn't think I was probably listening, nor thought it was mine. But, it had completely wrecked my mind-set for the day and felt like I'm not good enough or not achieving enough.
I always wondered why such little comments ruin a persons look on themselves when it doesn't really matter. People don't realise how much a small comment can differentiate someone's mind and their day if they hadn't of said what they said. That goes for anything. About someone's hair, clothes, shoes, intelligence, career, family… anything. If the words you said about or to others were portrayed all over your body like tattoos, for all the world to see, would you still be as lovely as you were portrayed before? Just a thought.
Choose happiness above everything no matter what anyone says, and certainly fight off things which will destroy your joy. Don’t belittle, be wiser.
