Why I switched from ‘I am important too’ to ‘I am important.’

Okay, before I begin this is not going to be a self-righteous ‘oh my life has turned on its head because of this one decision’, type of a post. This is another musing which can be blamed on the rains.

The thing is, I was not always the way I am today. I was a person who cared a lot about what people thought about her, and this was in every facet of my being — be it physical, emotional, mental or just something as basic as my choices. Then came a time where I decided that I was important too, that it was important for me to concentrate on my needs, too. I thought it was going well, everything somehow was falling in place and it made sense. But then it did not.

The ‘too’ is the culprit.

‘Too’ is when you are still putting people’s opinions and needs before yours, and giving yours an importance as an afterthought.

‘Too’ is when you get affected by what people say about you, but then you bring yourself out of it.

Understanding that, I had an epiphany and decided to rid myself of the ‘too’. It was not an overnight thing, it wasn’t like I decided and it was done. It is difficult when you are a person who takes other people a little too seriously. Anyway, the details of how I went about this change are available if you buy me a coffee. Lets get down to the results…

Here I was, somehow not caring about what people thought. The first thing that came to mind was I was going to become one of those mean people who were selfish and who were just downright cold.

*NEWSFLASH* I wasn’t. I didn’t turn into one of them. I actually started becoming more aware of the people around me, and about myself.

The difference was, I did not cold heartedly cut people away from my life, I just made these 2 circles; a basic barrier that stopped things from getting to me without it affecting me in a bad way.

I listened to people more clearly, saw beyond their tone and their language and somehow started reading in between the lines.

It helped me understand emotion better; I got to the root of the issues rather than just getting mad and feeling bad about myself or getting defensive.

When I treated myself as an important person, I understood myself better.

I knew what I loved about myself, and changed the things I hated.

I was proud of the things I was good at and worked at improving the things that I wasn’t.

I knew what I liked and what I disliked.

I understood my limits, which also meant I understood how much I could push myself to do something I disliked till I finally broke.

So, I stopped myself before I reached that limit, that way there was less friction in my life generally.

These limits also made me understand my expectations and somehow helped me get control on my emotions related to these expectations.

I could give more and expect less.

I slowly fell in love with myself so, I loved more. I know a lot of people say this, but here is what it means. When you decide to love yourself, there is a level of acceptance that you need to have, you accept and love yourself as a flawed being. You know you are not perfect, that you are grey, but you love yourself regardless. So, when you are faced with another person, you see that person as grey too, you accept faster and you are able to love more.

Here’s the thing, removing ‘too’ did not take away my problems, did not suddenly make me a positive happy person who was all roses and hearts, but it helped me understand and be okay with myself, and allowed me to be truthful to myself which in turn allowed me to be truthful to the people around me. This, is a very rare thing today and removing the ‘too’ was a step towards that.

I am still guarded, brooding, annoyed at all times — but I am important to me, and I always will be.