Be A Cat

I often think about my life. How I sometimes wanted to say no but instead, I said yes just so I wouldn’t upset the person who was asking me a question. I thought about all those opportunities that I’ve missed, because I was scared I wouldn’t be able to be good at it.

I thought about how I often fear the unknown future. How I was so good at imagining the worst possible outcome, and then convinced myself that it would become true. I turned down job offers. I turned down friendship offers. I turned down life offers. I thought, if I didn’t go for it, no one would know I would fail in the end. Including myself.

I thought about my little black cat. How she would always jumped up on the shelves, knocked things on the floor, scratched my ps4 or meowed loudly until she had my attention. And she got it. SHE. GOT. IT. By trying consistently. By creating new methods. By being patient. By knowing what might tick the other person. And by not afraid of rejection.

I guess for me, it all came down to rejection. I have been living with a fear of rejection. Of being rejected by my family, my friends, and even strangers who don’t know anything about me. I am scared that if I got too closed, they would find out the ugly side of me and decide I am not worth it after all. But how do we define one’s worthiness? Is there a book of people who made it in the worthy competition and won?

There is no “worth” bigger than your self-worth. We were all born “worthy” so why would that change if a romantic partner broke up with us or a company fired us? If you didn’t think of yourself as worthy, then you would easily let other people dictate that for you. You would run around, trying to find different channels, different people who would put a crown on your head and say, “you are worth it”. As long as you keep moving, then you would not have time to sit with yourself and ask the question, “who am I trying to please but myself?”

There’s a quote in the movie Lost In Translation (2003) that I really like:

The more you know who you are and what you want, the less you let things upset you.

Lost In Translation (2003)

It’s true that we often let other things get to us. For instance, you might wake up one morning and found out that your cat has vomited on the bed. Or that your job interview got cancelled. Or that you left the shoes outside all night and they all got wet. There’s a difference between letting those things upset you for a minute and making those external events define who you are.

You might choose to get up, clean up the cat’s mess, make a cup of coffee, email the company to ask why the interview got cancelled in the first place and request a reschedule interview date. You might take your shoes inside, dry them and put on an old pair of shoes on. The one you haven’t worn in a while, but it gives you a good kind of nostalgia. All of those “upsetting” events could be solved and turned around. And if you have a good attitude about them, they will disappear even quicker. But of course, we can’t have a “good attitude” about everything in life.

So, what if you blamed yourself for what happened? Told yourself that you’re not a good cat owner, that the interviewer probably found someone else who was a better fit, or how forgetful you are as a person that you won’t even remember to do anything later in life.

I understand that it’s easy to relate one thing to others. We live in a society where we are constantly judging and be judged. A man who showed up late for work is deemed irresponsible and unorganised. A student who couldn’t submit his assignment on time is often called lazy. We were told early in life that our actions contribute to our identities and we carry that with us in adulthood.

But it is not all true. Nothing is. Everything is on a spectrum and as long as we know that our mistakes won’t define who we are, we can overcome most of those. On most days. Some days, we just let those mistakes or grief or pain soak in until we can’t handle them anymore. There’s no perfect answer.

It’s good to sit back, think about what might contribute to our learnings and what not. Think about the external events that happened to us, what could we do about it, or should we just do nothing? When you’re done with the actions, carry on and keep moving. It’s in the past now and there’s no use in dwelling into it any longer.

Be a cat. Ask for what you want. And if you can’t have it, keep asking.

t.l.

sorry for rambling. I might edit later.