Stand up for yourself

Have you ever been to bed at the end of the day and were absorbed by guilt? That guilt rushing towards you holding “I should’ve said that” flag. This is a huge debate point in our regular talks. We talk about how people misunderstood us, how they hurt our feelings or how we are sure they meant no good with what appears to be an innocent question they’ve asked.

My mother is the kindest person on earth, I believe that trait and her smile are the reasons she is found attractive by strangers she encounters in her life. She came from a family that values virtues over materials and they believe in what I call the "sacrifice mentality". If you love someone you would go as far as sacrificing your all for them. You give without waiting for return because if that tells the world something it tells it how well raised and how sophisticated person you are. I believe this kind of thinking is beautiful and rare in today’s world. Being beautiful doesn’t mean it is suitable for all ages and all kinds of encounters. Al Ain as a small town is growing rapidly not just  in terms of modernity but in culture and way of thinking as well. Never the less, if each of us looked inside their houses we will still find traces of those people who were raised on the sacrificing mentality. Me myself had dealt with many troubles being truly influence by my mother’s kindness and following her leads. To listen to those older than you and never disagree, to always be kind and generous to others even if that was on your own comfort account, and to never return back the abuse by another abuse.

What our parents forgot

What our parents forgot to answer is how irrational it is to treat different  people with a single way. We start wondering why the same inputs would give us a different output each time. Eventually, we come back to the faulty conclusion of “Maybe it’s Me.”.  How many times in your lifetime you blamed yourself for a friendship that fell apart or for being mistreated after paying good or maybe not getting the situation right when everything else tells you;  you did the right thing? When the processing of your inputs is giving you unwanted outputs that’s a sign you need a different inputs to try with. (Excuse my technical terms I came from a technical background)

Social Intelligence

I’m here to assure you sometimes it is not your fault. You need to learn how to stand up for yourself especially if what you’re doing is right ethically and legally. In another words, you have to make sure that you 're not harming anyone around you in any way but still receive this kind of treatment. We need to learn what we once thought a bad person’s habit. We need to be SELFISH for ourselves once in a while.

People like my mom should not be underestimated. In fact those people have a very high emotional intelligence with clear self-awareness and empathy. They can easily read your facial expressions and know when to interfere or step back. However, a newer branch of intelligence was identified called the Social intelligence. Social Intelligence or as some prefer to call it “ people skill”; is about how you can smartly deal with your social life situations and how to interact with various types of personalities. It can be considered as a complementary to the emotional intelligence you already own, but they are not the same. Educating yourself on such topics can really widen you horizon and polish your ability to adapt in the vast moving world. And identifying such intelligence by psychologists shows how important it is to not just be the social beings we were born to be; but to be masters of the regular act of "socialising" in order to excel.

To Talk

We don’t realize how crazily social we are as creatures. We talk to people from different languages with different background and we learn how to analyze emotions and situations and act upon them. That’s a huge task in hand, but we do it as easily as breathing or drinking water and we would expect a clear communication without clashes or misunderstandings!? That’s way too optimistic! yet the issue can be resolved by simply talking and clarifying your point. If you don’t understand even a small part of the way a person acts never give the implication to the other side that you got it. Stop them to ask for further explanation. No one thinks it’s smart to be able to guess what people think inside their heads nor do they want to hear a yes when you mean a No. And NO one will refuse to rephrase his/her message to you unless that person is babbling about useless stuff and sees no benefit of transmitting the right message. I really regret standing in a middle of a foreign joke once and thinking it was ok and I should be more easy going. I did my part and asked for explanation but I was given some shallow answer and more laughs. It was hurtful and I should’ve said well you know what! A joke in a language that you don’t understand is not a funny joke and I wouldn’t accept to be treated that way. In my undergrad years, saying Yes when I meant No put me in a lot of trouble. I used to nod for the instructor when he checked if we got the topic, because I knew I could get it if I went through it at home. I always ended up wasting hours and nerves over one part I couldn’t get when asking was so much easier. Guess we have to live those moments to learn.

How someone I know did it

One of my workmates is a late thirties lady, she is really friendly and has a large network of communications which always wows me. I tend to sit with her in our free time to discuss issues around self-development and weird situations we faced during the week. I love how our talks takes a critical turn and goes as deep as analyzing the psychologies behind. She shared a confession with me that if there’s one thing she regrets doing for over a decade or so; it would be not speaking up for herself and sacrificing most of her energy and family time to others. People who she was going against herself for left her/never even remembered her at the peak of her relationship crisis. And what she made her mind to do this year is to revalue her relationships and be honest and most importantly transparent about her needs. She started talking her mind and she lost many people accordingly but those people didn't left that huge impact she thought they own on her life. What was more rewarding in speaking up was the people who appreciated her presence in their lives in first place, they had more of her attention and she got a hand full of their positivity.

Final word

I don’t ask you to be aggressive nor do I ask you to lower your standards. There is nothing more nobel than modesty and forgiveness but I ask you to protect yourself in a smart way so you keep your rights and dignity safe. We are lucky to have parents to correct our actions and clean community that brought us up to be the sophisticated grown-ups we are now. However, you need to acknowledge the fact that not everyone took the right turn on his way to adulthood. Some come loaded with hatred, greed, fear or trust issues while others come flying over their dreams, hopes, ambitions and kindness. Stop complaining of how they once treated you and start enforcing the way you want to be treated by and a step towards that starts with speaking your mind or as the topic suggests standing up for yourself.

Love,
Amna