An Open Letter

I don’t think there’s one person I know who hasn’t had a rough life or who doesn’t hit a bump in the road every now and again; and that includes me. You’re no exception. I understand that things in your past haven’t always gone well; and I understand that you’re having a tough time with your life now, but I also understand that you can overcome your problems if you really want to. I have and so have all of my friends. All it takes is a little acknowledgement from you that you can’t do everything alone.

You need to realize that the only person you can control is you and, although you feel like your life is out of control at this minute, it won’t always be that way if you choose to ask for help. I’m here to help you in any way I can, but I won’t offer unsolicited assistance. Rather than ask me, though, you opt to try to make me feel bad for my shortcomings because you can’t handle your life by yourself the way you thought you could. That’s a shame, too, because it won’t work. I won’t let you make me feel bad about anything.

I, along with everyone else I know, have had to ask for help at one time or another. I didn’t always like asking for help; sometimes asking was very humiliating, other times it was liberating. But I came to realize that there are definite times in my life that I have to get outside help because I’ve done all I can do by myself. During whatever the situation may have been, though, I never once tried to forget my problems by pointing out someone else’s. That’s what you do, though. You seem to think that if you can’t control your own life you’ll try to control everybody else’s and you just can’t do that. It’s your way of trying to justify the lack of control you have in your own world and it makes you feel better knowing you can try to control, at least, something.

Let me ask you this, though. How is that method working for you? I’m willing to bet it’s not working at all because every time you try it you end up being more miserable than when you started. I can see it on your face, I can read it in your body language, and I can hear it in your voice. You always end up feeling defeated, but, at the same time, you’re trying to figure out how you can possibly win the next battle. Let me answer that for you: You can’t, not against me, anyway.

You will never win against me again. I know that for a fact because when I finally came to terms with the fact that I needed help to get me past my hurdles, and when I finally asked for it, I got more help than I ever could have imagined. I not only learned how to find the resources I need whenever I need them, but also how to defend myself against people who feel the need to tell me I’m not good enough. No, you may not say it directly using those words, although you have in the past, but your attitude, and your little digs, and trying to fight with me when your issue has nothing to do with me; those are all your methods of trying to tell me I need to make some changes in myself.

Let’s get this straight: While your life is in such a state of upheaval, and until you become 100% perfect in every way, you have no right whatsoever to tell me, or anyone else for that matter, that I’m not good enough. You don’t even have the right to suggest it. I know it sucks for you to have to hear that. For some reason you have this image in your head that you’re better than most people and I don’t know why. I know that you’ve spent most of your life trying to live up to the expectations you think others have for you, and that when you can’t live up to them you feel like a failure. That’s when you try to push others down; it’s an effort on your part to build yourself back up again.

That’s not working for you, either, because I can see right through you and it saddens me. I feel sorry for you because you still haven’t learned to just be you and probably haven’t even figured out who “you” are. There’s nothing wrong with that because a lot of people I know are still working on finding out who they are. I’m still working on me. But at least we all take responsibility for who we are to date, and our actions from the past and present, and we will continue to do the same in the future. You, however, refuse to accept that for yourself. It’s never your fault, you never do anything wrong, and you don’t need any help.

As long as you keep trying to use me, and others who are close to you, as a verbal punching bag for your egotistical boost I’ll fight back, and I will win. I promise you, too, that until you come to terms with your own truth you will never break free from your past; and you will never be able to move forward. You have some thinking to do, some decisions to make, and some help to request. In other words, you choose what happens to you.

Until next time…peace to all.