By: Emily Wielgus
There’s always going to be someone in your life that may disapprove of what you choose to do. The decisions you feel are right tend to be beneficial to the journey you are passionate about that others may not be. This disagreement is what makes decisions the most difficult. No matter what, there's no escaping that aspect of life other than believing in what you think is right for you personally and following it. I live by the saying that I am the main character of my own life so why wouldn’t I be the one to choose the decisions that write my story when it comes to things that only affect me. This was a self realization that I made not too long ago but while growing up I never had the option to make the majority of my own choices. A lot of the big decisions within my life came from others around me like family rather than myself, so it was difficult to realize I shouldn’t be making choices to please others if it is negatively affecting me. From a very young age I played multiple sports at the same time for a very long period of time whether I liked the sport or not. This was a big aspect of my childhood that always kept me busy and I appreciated all of the experiences that came with it, but at the same time none of it was my decision. As the years went on I grew tired of the restless schedule of sports that I no longer were passionate about and knew that my academics were starting to get negatively impacted. Balancing multiple sports/teams at once while working within high school was a very difficult task at a younger age but again I didn’t feel like I could make the choice to quit in fear of disappointing others. Rather than quitting I chose to drop honors courses instead just to avoid the fear of disappointment. Now I wish I could tell my younger self that it will all be okay in the end if I choose to switch up the narrative of my life. Starting off college I wanted to only focus on my major since I knew that any STEM major would be difficult. I was also worried about choosing a challenging major since I had some people in my life who didn’t believe I was capable of that level and had a strong opinion on what they thought I should be doing as a career instead. This person was someone that I always wanted to impress since they were one of the few that made the majority of my decisions but yet there was no amount that would ever impress them. That took a long time to realize and accept as well which I think is also what led me to realize that although I may disappoint them, the choices I make are only going to impact me and my future. I was still playing the one sport that I cut down to before I started college , but I had lost a lot of passion for the sport since I was very focused on academics over athletics. I knew that the dream career that I wanted to achieve was a very difficult road ahead, but I wanted to get the most out of college and see if I can achieve my goals with my own choices. Once again going into college a lot of the choices still weren’t mine and I had a stipulation on me going to college. The people who had lots of influence on my decisions said that I had to play a sport or I wasn’t going to college which put a damper on what I truly wanted. So yet again I didn’t want to lose the chance at my dream and I also didn’t want to disappoint the people who mattered the most to me so I settled for a couple more years of the busy student athlete life. I also was already disappointing others by going against what they wanted my career to be so quitting the sport that gave me my main connection to them felt like too much of a disappointment to face. Sadly my grades started to get negatively impacted again from the lack of time and the continuous days of missing class due to games. After two years of playing a sport within college I hit a point where I realized that I need to get over the fear of disappointing others. I felt like what was the point of putting so much hardwork and dedication into something that I was no longer passionate about and overall wasn’t making me happy. Not only was it hurting my academics but it was also harming my mental health from the lack of time and increased stress levels. Therefore I hit a breaking point where I knew if I wanted to turn things around that I’d have to disappoint others to get there. I ended up quitting the summer after my second year and had to deal with the consequences that followed the disappointment, but overall my academics and mentality increased so much instantly after I made my own choice. I feel like you get to a point in life where you find the control to make the decisions you choose on your own and the disappointment of others somewhat fades away. Advice from others is always great, but the decision you make should be what you truly feel is right. I hope my story helps you feel like you are capable of choosing what is beneficial to yourself without the fear of disappointing others. If you ever feel like you are stuck weighing out decisions based on others and don’t know what to do I’m always here to help with advice or just be someone to listen to help you figure out the decision you truly want!
2 Comments
|