In class my professor stated that being comfortable
is a key factor to a society evolving.
At the time, I took her word for it. But
that night as I tried to fall asleep, I couldn’t help but
think about what she had said.
The more and more I thought about it,
the more and more I started to disagree.
It is with being too comfortable that my problems began
and I was lead astray.
Astray from the life I wanted to live.
Astray from the person I wanted to be.
I got too comfortable with the idea that I wasn’t good enough.
I got too comfortable with thinking that it is alright to
dismiss your intelligence to appear more attractive
in the eye of society.
I got too comfortable with knowing I will never be as
successful as a male who I work just as hard as.
I got too comfortable with the concept that beauty is
only measured with a scale
or a waistline.
I got too comfortable with the fact that my opinions
were not worth being heard.
I got too comfortable with being shoved into a corner
because I wasn’t important.
I got too comfortable with being treated wrongfully by
people I thought were my friends.
I got too comfortable with the idea that my body
wasn’t only mine.
I was so comfortable with thinking of myself as a failure
that I turned into a snowball of
self-destruction,
rolling down a hill,
faster and faster,
becoming greater and stronger until
I was no longer myself.
I would stare myself in the mirror, hating
what was in front of me.
A depressed, hardly living skeleton, without a drop
of self-esteem, faith or hope.
I got too comfortable with the notion that mental
health troubles are something to be ashamed of,
something we should not talk about,
that to get help is a sign of weakness.
But that isn’t right.
And thinking back upon it now, how normal that comfort felt
to everyone, including myself, makes me extremely
uncomfortable.
I am uncomfortable with society trying to define
success by numbers. Money. Followers. Retweets.
It makes me uncomfortable that men try
to intimidate me
reject me
because I am a female
wanting to work in a male dominated industry
and they feel threatened.
It makes me uncomfortable that people hate
themselves for not being what society expects
them to be. I am uncomfortable
with the
fact
that so
many people are
comfortable.
Discomfort is good; it’s what brings change.
Being uncomfortable will redefine the standards
that society or the media have manipulated us to accept.
We should strive for this, as when everyone
around the world, regardless of
age
sex or
race becomes
uncomfortable,
then nobody will have to be.
