Up until the age of seven, my family was damaged and struggling with having an alcoholic father and a loving, kind mother who was just trying to keep the peace by directing all the verbal abuse onto herself. Then, my sister and I were left oblivious (my sister knew more, she was older) to the foreseeable destruction of my idealistic family in the close future.
This was not just because I was younger, though that played a large contributing part, it was the fundamental actions i would take, subconsciously every day, to avoid the pain that I was experiencing.
This was through playing video games and watching videos on YouTube to pass the time.
After my parents’ divorce, I thought I had moved past all of this, I didn’t develop a necessity to endulge myself in online entertainment to get me through the day, no way! You can probably tell, this was not the case.
I was trapped, and I didn’t realise this was a problem until I was older. It happened in 2021, where I was in my room, watching who-knows-what and it suddenly came to me. I had wasted so much of my life already just watching other people’s success and happiness occur. I would digitally lynch off their happiness, vicariously living through them a life that I didn’t believe I would get to experience. It isn’t to say that now I am successful and wealthy, I am still a University student who works at a supermarket to pay the rent, but my mindset has changed.
I have developed a belief that I am what controls my limits in life. Henry Ford once wrote “The man who thinks he can, and the man who thinks he can’t, are both right” and this quote just resonates with me now. After recovering from COVID; being locked away in my room, I realised I don’t want to live the life of a bum, and have my life be equivalent to a watch history page on YouTube. These pages are so easily deleted, and if my life is equivalent to that, then what am I doing with my time. I want to contribute to something in the world, even if I help someone else achieve their dreams.
I know I can do it, and you know you can do it too, so stop holding yourself back. We can all be better than the people we were yesterday, don’t let things get in the way of that.
From My View 