FutureDerm

Follow Friday + Nicki’s Personal Updates: The Biggest Part of Growing Up

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I think, for me, the biggest strides of self-development have occurred when I allowed myself to challenge my beliefs.

For instance, growing up, certain people in high school weren’t particularly nice to me. In fact, some of them were downright rude, condescending, or dismissive. This affected me in a lot of ways. I assumed they were racist. I labeled them as small-minded and provincial. I stopped caring about fitting in completely somewhere around age 16 and instead prided myself chiefly on individual success: GPA in high school and college, revenue and salaries thereafter. I am ashamed to admit that, for years afterwards, I felt little pangs of pride when I would see they were still living in the same borough we grew up in, often still with their parents.

It took years for me to change my dour feelings towards those certain people. There was a girl in eleventh grade who was particularly rude to me and once told me — loudly — I was only accepted to CMU because I was Asian, and the entire class laughed. I worked my ass off in high school, and it hurt. I mentally labeled her as racist, a nobody, and someone to avoid.

When I recently ran into her on the street, she was kind, open, and gracious. “We always knew you’d do awesome things!” she said when I told her about FutureDerm. I immediately felt pangs of guilt for all of the animosity I had been harboring for her past behavior towards me. Clearly, she didn’t remember it — or me — that way at all.

My real escape from the past started when I began to question my beliefs. Positive interactions with former “jerks” helped, as did new friendships formed in college and graduate school — I had a lot of friends, some because I really didn’t give two hoots what most people thought about me anyway.

But it really started to change when I allowed myself to question my perceptions. Maybe those people in high school genuinely didn’t like or “get” me, but maybe they just thought something I did was worth joking around about. Maybe I was too sensitive. Or maybe I was just not a fit.

Who knows? But what really matters is that I had to change the belief as an adult that people wouldn’t like me. I had to change the belief I needed not to care, to be scared, guarded, dial down my desires and opinions, put on a front, not show vulnerability, and never do or say certain things for fear I would be laughed at, received badly, or disregarded entirely.

It’s taken a lot of time, but I think I’ve come a long way. I wish everyone well now, even people who have hurt me in the past. There’s rarely a sense of competition or one-upping anyone, and when there is, I catch myself and dissolve it as best I can internally. And while I occasionally have rough interactions with people — I had two mothers roll their eyes at me at a recent baby shower because I suggested paying their children small sums for completing their chores — I’m learning how to let these interactions roll off of my back.

You’ll never get sailing anywhere if you’re afraid of making a few waves. I’m strongly opinionated yet incredibly sensitive. I’m a super-ambitious businessperson, but I’m also all about starting a family. One of my closest friends is a stay-at-home mom who runs a born-again Christian mothers’ church group; the other runs a physician’s office and is covered in tattoos. I’m a lot of contradictions that can rub people the wrong way, but if I want to live my best life, I need to continue to challenge my beliefs and keep learning how to be more fearlessly me, all the time.

Love,
Nicki

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