Kevin here.
It’s almost been 10 years since I graduated high school.
Tempus fugit for real.
Recently I was thinking about being a loser in high school. Here are some of things that I went through…
- I was a nerd and had barely any friends.
- Everyday my dad yelled at me. Nothing I did was ever enough for my dad. He told me straight up that my birth was a mistake. Imagine how a 15 year old would feel after hearing that?
- I felt like a dumbass. Some of my friends never studied and got A’s, while I spent days studying… only to be getting a C in chemistry.
- No one wanted to date me. My first “girlfriend” crushed my testicles by saying… I never liked you. I only dated you because I pitied you. Ouch.
- My Friday and Saturday nights? Warcraft III and Counter-Strike. The only parties I went to were LAN parties. Even though I loved gaming, I desperately wanted to be cool.
The worst thing about everything?
I felt alone, helpless, and trapped… unable to get out of my environment. There was no one to turn to for help. No one understood. I tried my best to be a good person, but I couldn’t do anything right.
My darkest moment
I wanted someone to just come along and just be like “Don’t worry… Everything will be all right“.
… but at the end of the day no one was there. Every night I would go to bed saying…
The world would be so much better without me.
…dark shit right?
Maybe you feel like this too. You’re trying your best, but life kicks you back down. No matter what you do nothing is working. No one truly understands. And you might wonder… What the fuck am I doing with my life?
I imagined the world without me. It would be better if I wasn’t a burden anymore.
Some of you might read this saying…
You’re victim. Stop being a bitch. Grow some balls… and you’re right. Looking back, I needed to do all those things.
But when you’re in that moment, the last thing you need is more Asian parenting. I was already beating myself up every single fucking day.
If you’re starting from here, how do you make your life better? Where do you begin? The answer is perception.
How to stop catching L’s
I couldn’t control what my dad thought about me, being a nerd in high school, or how smart I was… those were all external factors.
You can’t directly control what other people do and how they feel… but we always have control over our mind and attitude.
At the end of the day, we have two choices.
- Choose to be miserable (obsessing on what you can’t change)
- Make things better (focusing on what you can control)
When you focus on taking action and creating solutions, you are telling yourself… I’m done settling. It’s on me to make things better. Fuck being a victim. I’m a boss.
The reason why girls didn’t like me and why I had no friends was because I was a miserable person. Who the wanted to be around that 24/7?
Start with one small thing that you have control over
Part of starting a positive mindset is taking control of ONE thing or area in your life. This is the key to mental toughness.
For me, it was going to the gym. It started with going once a week. I had no idea what the hell I was doing… then next thing you know my deadlift went from a 45 lb bar to 520 lbs.
If I could change this one small thing, what else could I change? Then I started working on other areas of my life… like money, girls, and studying.
It was this momentum that helped cultivate my positive mindset.
Negativity created my positive mindset
Whenever I have a hard day, I try to remember the days when I used to cry myself to sleep like a little bitch. If I could get through those times, then I’ll get through anything.
At the end of the day, bad things will inevitably happen to all of us and when they come around, it’s an opportunity to make things better.
Negativity isn’t a bad thing and is a great motivational tool. It helped create the person I am today. If I could make it through those dark moments, you can too. Don’t quit.
You always have the choice to make tomorrow a better day. What is your one thing that you’re going to take control of today?
Please share this article to someone who might be going through tough times. You never know who’s life you might change.
Kevin
PS…
If you’re going through depression, it might seem like the end of the world today… but reach out and get help. Who knows how you might change the world 10 years down the line?
After feeling useless to the world for so many years, it still shocks me how I’ve changed people’s lives and how my experiences are opportunities to relate to so many people.
Who knows what you might be able to do or where you’ll be in 10 years?
Hey Man,
Thanks for sharing this; I can definitely state that myself and people I knew that have been through this, and like you said, it’s all about the perception.
With that said though, unfortunately, there have been people that have “taken the other road,” so to speak. How much we can affect that, I’m not sure. I definitely think this post is great at self-addressing, but I was wondering how you feel we can try (and try and try) to help someone else realize the same?
Thanks, Kevin! Keep doing you, brother!
This really hit home with me. Going through crippling depression as I write this. Thank you for reminding me that there are other ways to look at stuff.