Saturday, April 10, 2010

So, This is Who I Am

There is a blog that I read fairly often- usually daily- that surprised even me when it first caught my fancy. It's www.thatwifeblog.com, and it's the blog of a young, married, Mormon housewife. When I started reading it, she had just gotten married, and now about a year and a half later, she's about to have a baby. This woman and I are pretty much polar opposites on a lot of issues, but on many others we see eye to eye. I enjoy her blog, her writing, and her personality. Plus, she takes fabulous pictures and I like my blogs to give me some pictures to go with the stories :) Anyway, what is the point of all of this?

Basically, she has many readers, but also quite a few vehement critics. The same person I experience as poised, principled, and interesting, others view as condescending, judgmental, and selfish. I'm reading the same blog, by the same woman, yet her critics and I are having polar opposite reactions and experiences. This made me realize, as I commented on the blog after a particularly nasty comment, that it really is true that you no matter how wonderful or kind or helpful or sweet or thoughtful or any other positive adjective you think you are being... yeah, some people will just flat out not like you. And since you *know* that, since you *know* that no matter what you do, someone will probably really, really dislike you, it just further reinforces that truth that parents- well, good parents- try to instill in their children. Which is to just be yourself. Try to be the best person you can be, but other than that, give up all the rest of the worry. It isn't worth the time, effort, and trouble to try and please people because in the end those who like you will like you, other people might ignore you, and some people will just hate you no matter what the hell you do.

So, this is who I am. And I really don't care what people, who are hell bent on hating me, think of me. Because I know who I am, the people that hate/dislike me are wasting their life on negativity, and God knows random people, who are probably well loved by others, have sometimes rubbed me the wrong way for God knows what reason. We're people, and we're weird, and the problems come when we start caring about the weirdness, instead of just accepting it and moving on to more important things, like reading blogs and eating dinner with the windows open and a cool breeze coming in.

Ta-da! It's that easy. And with that I'm going to finish eating my fried pickles and black bean burger. Also, the strawberry root beer is pretty fucking fabulous.

Although I'm sure some people would completely hate it ;)

1 comment:

  1. Well said Cortney! I haven't yet had a negative comment on my blog and I am really scared for the day that it will happen. Because of that {and also because most of my family reads my blog} I tend to censor what I say and shy away from controversial topics. But you're right, who cares, I can't expect everyone in the world to like me or agree with me. I'm not going to waste anymore time or brainpower worrying about negative comments!

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