One time I read that the very thing you are insecure about, is the thing that you are quickest to judge the most about other people. It is really interesting to think about, but in my case, I found it the hard way to be true.
I started college accepting how different I was. I was always the sober friend and I was really focused on my school work, and going to the gym. I wanted so badly for people to accept that was who I was. I felt as if nobody understood that was my life choice and hated me for being so different. Therefore, I hated them too.
Going to a large university, I was surrounded by the very thing I hated the most. I thought college was going to be so much better than high school because people are paying money to be here, and they were learning about things that they were interested in! Right! Mostly wrong. This was a big break for a lot of people, they could finally make their own choices and their choices were heavily surrounding the choice of making thirsty thursday an everyday occurrence.
I couldn’t stand it. I couldn’t stand the thought that my peers were making these choices, and I felt so ostracized because I was not making these choices. I automatically hated every typical frat guy and sorority girl that I had ever met. In the media, every single story about greek life is about hazing, sex, drugs and alcohol. You only hear so much negative about greek life, and you would never come to know any different unless you visited a fraternity, (which I would never have been caught dead in). I had to learn the hard way that the judgement I was passing had no leg to stand on.
In one of my classes my sophomore year, there was your typical frat guy that all year had shown up in all of his “frattire”. I can admit now that I hated him. I hated everything that I thought that he stood for, yet I never knew a thing about him. I hated him for every single thing that the media portrayed him to be, and I assumed he hated me too because I wasn’t that girl that hangs out in a frat house. Therefore, I did everything I could to avoid an interaction with him, up until the last large assignment in the class. We had to create a movie project on a social issue with a partner. Of course, I was the one person left without a partner, and so was “B”. I scoffed at the idea and carried on for the grade. We discussed what issue we were going to talk about and he immediately said “I would like to make a drunk driving awareness video”. I was taken aback for a second because I had always thought that he would be the classic drunk driver, not the one remotely concerned about raising awareness. Upon the next few weeks, I had slowly gotten to know him and what he actually stood for. He answered every question I had about greek life without judgement and made me realize simply how wrong I was about fraternities. It was then that I realized how selfish my judgement was.
I was so insecure about how different I was, that I spent so much time disliking these people because I assumed they were judging me. How wrong I was. “B” and I thankfully still have a friendship years later sharing our favorite books and pictures of corgis and thoughts on the newest star wars movie. I am so grateful that I had been stuck with “B”. Not only did I make such a good friend, but I had also learned a lot about others and judging them because of my own insecurities.
Insecurities are unbelievably controlling. I didn’t even know that I was insecure about my life choices. In fact, I thought that it was the exact opposite. The next time that you find yourself passing judgement, call yourself on it. The only way to be accountable for your judgements and your opinions, is to call yourself out for being selfish and evaluating your own insecurities. We are all human, choose to grow from it.