India McLeod: Overcoming Others Opinions

This memoir expresses a detailed story of how I felt going through self-consciousness because of someone else's words. I wanted to write specifically about something personal that I have talked about a lot but never fully elucidate on. Almost a year ago, I went through change in my personality, style and feelings. I guess you can say some sort of side effect from puberty. I started to become more interested in the 1970's aesthetic and culture. I started to find interest in owning a record player rather than listen to music on my iphone. During this, my sister wasn't too supportive of me. I was used to her acting this way, but something about this time was different. She would say things like I have no fashion sense and that I should stop dressing this way because no one likes it. I was heartbroken. Not too much from her cruel words, but from me knowing that what I was doing was going to get some weird looks and people might say things. I've always been that person who says they don't care what others say, but break down in tears when someone does criticize me. To overcome this feeling, I did a mental interview with myself. I asked questions like "Why do you care so much about her opinions of you?", and "Why don't you say anything back to her?" The reason is, because that won't make a difference. I heard in a movie once that calling someone else dumb won't make you smarter. Or calling someone ugly won't make you any prettier. This story is meant to give off the idea that doing something to someone else, doesn't make you superior. This story is also suppose to give the message that we as humans just HAVE to be ourselves. We can't spend life letting the thought of other disfavor dictate what we do.