Self-acceptance: I see me true. Prehistory.

2014 was a year of challenges for me. I had just finished high school and it was officially time to make big decisions for my future. At that time, it was already around three years since I’ve seriously started writing and mainly, all I wanted from life was to have a tiny room, preferably pen and paper and everyone else to keep their distance from me. I wanted to be a writer, you see. I did not want to deal with life outside of my tiny room and imagination. Not because I hated life (no one hates life, trust me), but because I had no idea what to do about it.

At first, as I thought, my life worked. I lived in a box and I was foam-mouth to protect it from any kind of intrusion. Many years went by like one. I discovered with pain in the heart, that all I was truly doing was writing stories that I stored shamelessly in the bottom drawer of my desk. I was a writer with no word shared to others. It was a fail. My peaceful life in the tiny room started shredding in front of my eyes and I with it. Loud were life’s demands for me to act.

Ultimately, I understood, that no living creature should live like a canned pickle and I made the biggest decision of my life—I decided to leave my tiny room and face reality beyond my imagination.

Imagine a clotted street with people flooding back and forth—busy bees and elegant swans—each a mystery to me. And right in a middle that flood, as a hump on smoothly running road was me. A mere duck as I used to feel. I had no idea what place among this purposely organized chaos did I have. Should I be a bee or a swan? Was it wrong to be a duck? Bad? Shameful even? At that moment, those were eternal questions to me.

I wanted to hide back into my hole.

All the people I met, seemed so in control of their lives, so confident about themselves and somehow, at times in their own way, happy. But how was I, a mere duck, supposed to deal with all of it? I saw people studying, working, planning and what was even more surprising, looking like they knew exactly what they were doing. Successfully or not, they were building their lives, making big decisions for their future whereas I was what I was. Not a bee and not a swan.

There was a funny fact about life I had to learn —

Life is not what we have but rather what we build out of it.

I had no idea what it meant then. Was not there a destiny? The wheel of faith or something like that to decide my life? I questioned even though I was long past believing in such things.

So ultimately, I started searching.

True, there are lots of aspects and details needed to be considered when the question of qualitative life arises. No one will argue that managing time is as important as planning day ahead. That confidence plays a great role in success and journaling is good for your mental health. Yet, there was something I felt missing in the core.

It was long and speculative jump inside myself. What I found there missing was, to my surprise, I. That's when I found out about self-acceptance and started questioning what it was and how can I adopt it for my life. That’s where my true discoveries began.

Today, I find it rather sad, looking back and realizing that my entire life was a blind journey to things that never meant to become my part. I figured that the only reason we struggle to fit in life is our misunderstanding of who we truly are.

If you’re just like me, a mere duck among bees and swans, self-acceptance can be your key and navigator in building the life of your dream.

In my next post, I’ll share my findings about self-acceptance, what it means and what are the main blocks standing on our way to getting it. I also will share my observations on how self-acceptance can propel our confidence up.

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With love, Franka.