Ascend Beyond Average

Let me ask you a question: have you ever walked away from a conversation feeling like you should have spoken up, but didn’t? Perhaps someone said a certain thing to you, or treated you in a certain way that you didn’t like. Chances are they didn’t even mean it rudely, and perhaps it wasn’t even rude in the first place . . . but either way, it made you uncomfortable. And you walk away, annoyed, anxious and pissed off, not only at whoever made you feel this way, but at yourself for not having the courage to stand up and speak for yourself.

That is certainly something I struggle with — whenever someone treats me in a way that I don’t like, and I do nothing about it, I end up losing sleep. I waste so much of my damn energy and time because I keep thinking about that one situation repeatedly, not being able to focus on what matters.

Yesterday, for example, a guy kept touching my shoulder — and though he meant it as a friendly gesture, I didn’t want him to touch me. Another time, someone asked me to go walk around the university campus, and not wanting to make anything of it, I agreed . . . although I didn’t want to. There was also this one time when a guy repeatedly disrespected me in public, but because he was a classmate, I laughed it off acting as if it didn’t bother me, but then later it’d piss me off all day, all week and the entire month.

I can’t even imagine all the energy and time I’ve lost on these day-to-day interactions, simply because I haven’t stood up for myself. The question, then, becomes: how DOES one learn to stand up for oneself? How does someone deal with the fear of confrontation and disagreements, and get the mindset of: “I am the way I am, take it or leave it”.

I’m not claiming I have the answer, otherwise I wouldn’t have had any problem standing up for myself. Either way, I am a human in the process of learning and exploring, and so I write this post anyway.

I think the root cause comes down to this: we fear confrontation and disagreements because we want others to like us. That’s it, there’s nothing more to it. In confrontations, we fear that we might end up showing our vulnerability and get others to dislike us. And that might mean losing friends and reducing our social value. And this part is so deep-rooted in our brain, it is so instinctive, that it exists entirely in our subconsciousness — we don’t even KNOW why we’re so afraid of confrontation.

Standing up for yourself means showing vulnerability, which can further lead to awkward situations and a loss of friends. We don’t take a stand because we’d rather not put ourselves through the discomfort of actually engaging in a confrontation.

But here’s the thing: every action has consequences, and the consequences of not standing up for yourself are detrimental. Why? Because when you refuse to stand up for yourself, you stand up for someone who ISN’T yourself. You’re going against your core values, and that may lead to an existential crisis. Every time you want to speak up, but don’t, you completely ruin your self-respect, you happily tell the entire world, “hey guys, look at me, I don’t have any self-respect, I’m not important, I’m just letting everyone step over me here!”.

Is that the kind of person you are? I fear the answer might be yes, and that stresses me. In my mind, I am an honest, disciplined and confident man. But if I truly was a confident man, would I really struggle standing up for myself? I don’t think so. And so by not standing up for myself, I go against one of my core values: confidence. And that, I guarantee, is why not standing up for myself pisses me off as much as it does . . . it is not simply a one-time situation that happened, no! It is a situation that made me realise that I’m not who I say I am, and that I’ve got to figure things out, lest I’m happy with wasting so much energy and time on things that don’t even matter.

If I assess the situation from a logical perspective, it doesn’t make ANY sense whatsoever NOT to stand up for myself. I just ask myself these questions:

1. Am I comfortable with who I am, not who they want me to be? Yes.
2. Do I respect myself MORE than I respect them? Yes.
3. Do I fear losing the kinds of friends and acquaintances I don’t even want in the first place? No.
4. Do I care more about making it in the world than I care about making them happy? Yes.
5. Do I HATE being disrespected and treated like a child without any values? 100%.

Well, if that is the case, then why in the damn am I so goddamn afraid of taking a stand and risking vulnerability? It doesn’t make ANY sense, yet, the answer lies in the fact that this is how I was raised.

I was told to always obey, not to start disagreements, keep my opinions to myself and listen to elders. I am wrong and they are correct — that’s just the way it is. Just ignore things and let them be.

That CAN be a good mindset to have for certain people, but not everyone. They tell you to help everyone, but when the hell are you going to help yourself? This is not a problem that only I suffer . . . my mother suffers it the most, and I might have gotten it from her. She helps and helps and helps, yet is stressed herself. She has no time for her own stuff. She keeps doing things for others, neglecting herself. Her mental and physical health is declining, yet she’s unaware of that, because she doesn’t KNOW herself.

I have to break the cycle. I take an oath: I will NEVER, EVER, tolerate being disrespected or stepped on by any loser out there. I don’t give a damn about the consequences — bring me confrontation, disagreements and awkward situations: I’ll learn to THRIVE in that shit.

Treat me in a way I don’t like, and I’ll immediately call out your bullshit. I don’t care if I ruin a social gathering, make it awkward, make everyone turn against me, whatever: I am who I am. I’m COMFORTABLE with who I am. I’m not here to make friends, but to get the job done, whatever the hell that might be. Mind you, this doesn’t mean I’ll turn into an asshole, no. I am still a kind and patient man, wanting to spread positivity in the world. But I’ve realised that you can’t spread positivity while letting others stepping all over you — you cannot spread positivity by being a people pleaser. You MUST have values, opinions, and you’ve got to be comfortable with whoever the hell you are. And then you can spread positivity.

Faking your character and masking your values because you fear judgement is nothing but pure hypocrisy: you’re not kind, you’re just a coward. And I’m not telling that to you specifically, whoever’s reading this (if anyone is at all, I don’t know), I’m saying this to myself. This isn’t a well-written blog post, this is a JOURNAL that I’m throwing out into the world, as a first step to my journey of discovering and building myself. I am pissed off by not having the courage to do the right and to stand by the truth, to not express myself and my opinions. I’m pissed off because I was taught that being nice was the only thing that mattered, and yeah you should be nice, but there’s more to it all. You can’t be nice while being a people pleaser, a doormat, a coward. You have to be strong, assertive, direct, honest, blunt . . . and THEN you can be kind. Will others misunderstand you? Yes, they will. Does it matter? No, absolutely not.

So, before I publish this, Imma say this: no more fake smiling from now on, no more lies, no more excuses, no more ignoring the elephant in the room and no more storming fear. I am the way I am. I’m not here to barely get the job done and then relax. No! I am here to absolutely dominate, put everything I have into this ONE task (whatever it might be), and then move to the next one and repeat.

I’m not living my life to enjoy, find a healthy balance, relax and happily make friends along the way. I mean, friends are nice but they aren’t a GOAL that I MUST achieve. I am here to grind, find strength where there is none, stay silent and focused, and keep crossing of tasks day by day, goals year by year, and a big-ass success story by the time I die. Whenever that might be. If I die tomorrow at least I’ll know that I lived true to my word yesterday. If not, well, then I die in regret and guilt.

Who am I? Furqan. Silent, focused, honest, direct, focused, disciplined, confident, patient and committed. Dislike me if you want, I’m not here to make you or anyone else LIKE me; I’m just here to get the job done. If you understand, great, if not, you don’t have to stay around. I’m good whether I have you or not. That is the convo that’ll run through my mind when I’ll be standing up for myself and entering a potential confrontation. I’m thrilled. Understand me? Yeah? Great, see you at the top in a few years. Don’t understand me? Bye!