Standing Up For Myself

I wrote a while back about how I am constantly doing things for others, and not myself. And as anyone who has read my blog for a while knows, I am not overly quick at learning from my mistakes.

I constantly find myself begging the universe for second chances. And honestly, I feel like I am generally given more than I deserve. And something that I have learned from that is that, to miss an opportunity once is human. To miss it again is just STUPID.

So here I sit, after what probably could count as chance number three at a given situation terrifically bitter that I have once more missed out.

Why would I do such a thing, you ask? It seems as though it would be quite complicated to explain, but it really isn't. The situation was one that everyone in my life has an extremely tough and thorough opinion about just in general, if not speaking specifically of this particular thing. And after months, and even years of letting the weight of their opinions bear down on me, I finally gave in to it. I gave in to what everyone else thought I should do, and how everyone else thought I should behave.

Let's be perfectly clear. I didn't do something I wanted to because I was afraid of what everyone would say if they knew.

Stupid, right? But we've all done it, haven't we?

I'm so angry at myself now, because all I can think about is what could have been, and what I had wanted it, and how scared I'd been of everyone else's opinion and how much I cared about what other people thought of me. Why in god's name should that have mattered AT ALL!? I hesitated when I should have stepped up and gone for what I wanted. And I did it because, as usual, I stopped thinking about what I wanted and started thinking about what everyone else wanted.

So I missed out on something I wanted, because I "didn't" want it, and I "wasn't supposed to" want it. But you know something?
THIS IS YOUR LIFE

You don't get a rebate when you mess up, and you don't always get a second chance when you don't take it the first time. So you'd better do it right the first time, because we never know what's going to happen next.

So from now on, I'm standing up for myself. I'm not letting what other people think of me keep me from going after what I want. I'm not letting anyone else's idea of who I should be keep me down.

Is there anything you wish you could have a second chance at? Is there an opportunity you're really glad you took? Have you ever not done something because you were afraid of what people would say about you? Have you ever done something in spite of the fact that everyone told you not to? What happened?

~Jessica