#28: BE PROUD OF YOURSELF, NO MATTER WHAT
Our world is complex. We live in a multitude of dynamics every day, ranging from the conversations you have with your friends to the short encounter you have with people that work in the place where you buy your food. We are in a constant relationship with people around us but, sometimes we don’t even notice. Stop to think about it for one second: how many people have you passed by today that you didn’t even recognize the importance this person have in your everyday life, because, at the end of the day, we all influence each other in terms of our perception about the world we live in. Can you imagine how different would it feel to go to your favorite restaurant with no one being there? Could you picture going to a really nice and peaceful park with loads of people there walking and making noise all the time? So yeah, the context you are in impacts you more than you think it does, and recognizing that is really important to understand how we operate in this world and what kind of sense do we make about these dynamics we are constantly surrounded by.
Even though a lot of the time we don’t recognize how important the context around us is essential to make us who we are, I’d say that we don’t recognize the potential we can put out in the world, only because we are historical and social beings as well. What I mean is that your social history and personal story matter a lot in terms of influencing the way we are and how we do what we do. Putting it in another way, you are, really, a complex sum of all the little agents around you and, in the same way, you influence those little agents around you. So, that old idea that if you are happy, people around you are going to be more likely to be happier, is really true as well as the opposite of it. No matter what we do, we are constantly influencing and being influenced by things around us.
Following this line of thought, our emotions are crucial in terms of making sense of the world around us. Being sad, for example, will shape the way things around you are going to unfold and present themselves to you as well, and the same is true to every single emotion we can feel. In saying so, I’d argue that being proud of yourself is one of the best ways to operate in the environment in terms of putting positive vibrations out there and, by the logic I just wrote before, receiving them as well. If you’re proud of yourself, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re just happy and joyful. These emotions are related to the feeling of “being proud” as well but I’d say that it is a more inspiring type of emotion. Being proud of yourself is acknowledging some type of achievement, is understanding the whole context in which you are embedded, and recognizing that you have the power to do things, to be better, and to grow, no matter what. You see yourself in the past and can identify your evolution as a human being without diminishing anyone or anything around you to make yourself feel better. Maybe, being proud is one of the most humbling emotions one can feel when you’re doing that for the right reasons.
Many people, myself included, feel like they don’t get anywhere. We feel like we’re stuck in a cycle of not doing much, of just failing to be better while seeing people around us doing incredible things that we think we’re never going to achieve. But as soon as we start understanding where we are in life and look back to see what we’ve actually accomplished, we can feel this sense of being part of something bigger than ourselves. We feel like if we continue doing what we’re actually doing, we can begin to see amazing results in terms of our own journey and, consequentially, the journey of others as well.
To be able to see this way forward of course one shouldn’t just sit around not doing much but, exactly the opposite, engage in activities that you enjoy. For example, for a few years now I realized I enjoy cooking. Every time I engage in a cooking activity, that makes my day and even my week: the smell, the sensations, and the taste of food are extremely impactful to me in a lot of different ways. But it hasn’t always been like that. When I was younger, I never engaged in activities related to cooking because I thought it was a bit boring and really difficult. Looking back now, I realize that I can cook so much more compared to when I was 15 years old that I can feel nothing but joy and excitement about my own journey in terms of cooking and being more independent. So, just by simply engaging in one activity, I see how much of myself — and the ones that influenced me — there is in cooking and how much of cooking there is in me. So being proud of having had the pleasure and honor to be impacted by these beautiful people and places that gave me the inspirations to cook what I cook nowadays is just the right and only feeling I could have, looking back.
To summarize, being proud of one’s achievements is an honorable feeling because it comprehends the timeless and endless being that you are as well as recognizing that you are because we all are and that is an extraordinary and powerful feeling we should always pursue in terms of our personal and societal growth.
