Читать книгу Embracing the Awkward - Joshua Rodriguez - Страница 9

My purpose growing up

When I was a young boy growing up, I always felt like I needed to work hard to stand out as my own individual self. Being the middle child of three boys meant there was a lot of butting heads and competing for everything from toys to sleeping on the top bunk of the bunk bed. Normally the middle child gets the stigma of feeling left out or overlooked, but that wasn’t really the case with me. In fact, I think it actually pushed me to work harder to establish myself so that I could be proud of who I was by just being myself.

In my house, my brothers and I had a pretty interesting dynamic with one another. My older brother, who is one year my senior, carried himself as a bit of a leader, always the first to make a decision and to try new things because he was the firstborn. My younger brother, who is three years my junior, strove a little more to be accepted by the two of us; because of the bigger age difference, it was harder for him to be able to do the same things we wanted to do. Because of all of this, I feel like I learned early on what each of their different needs were and how to peacefully make everyone happy. For example, one Christmas, I remember our parents buying us each a WWF action figure. When we opened them up, my older brother proclaimed that he had been given the best figure and showed it off to the two of us, so I joined in his excitement to make him feel happy with what he got. When my younger brother and I opened our figures, I saw that I had one that he would have liked more. Just seeing the expression of disappointment on his face made me realize that although I didn’t care about the character he had, I knew he would be happier with mine, so I traded with him. My older brother was happy, my younger brother was happy, and I was happy that they both felt the love and respect they needed in that moment.

It started to become clear to me that doing the right thing and helping others made me feel good about myself; knowing I could make small sacrifices that didn’t hurt me long-term made me realize that there was something to humility and sacrifice.

When I started going to school, my parents instilled in me the importance of doing well academically, so I made it my mission once again to aim to work hard so I would stand out. I remember in elementary school, I would try my best to win as many awards, certificates, and plaques as possible, I even had a bit of a feud going with another girl in my class over this. She had the same dedication and drive as I did to succeed to the best of her abilities, so we both made sure to enter every contest, write every essay, and create every art project possible just so we could be recognized for our achievements. During one awards ceremony in the fourth grade, the two of us were called up to the stage so many times that we decided to stand in the aisles instead of sitting down, just in case we were called up again. It was an adrenaline rush for me to be recognized for my achievements, I knew that deep down inside that this was exactly what my parents wanted from me, and the last thing I ever wanted to do was let them down.

Once I reached middle school, that started to change a little bit. The kids I hung out with weren’t bad, but they certainly didn’t make it easy to uphold my perfect student image. We pulled lots of pranks on each other without any regard for how they could get us into serious trouble. Whether it was jumping across the lunch tables or having wrestling matches in class, I had quite of a bit of explaining to do to my parents whenever they got a call from the school. In some ways, a lot of it was harmless fun, but one thing I knew was never to do anything that would get me in serious trouble. Nothing scared me more than getting suspended or expelled from school. If I ever met that fate, I would have had no clue how to explain it to my parents.

By high school, I was so set in my ways of never letting my parents down that I avoided anything that my parents told me not to do. When my friends started drinking and smoking, I turned it all down because I knew my parents wouldn’t be happy with me. If some of my friends were cutting class or ditching school, I told them I couldn’t do that because I wasn’t allowed to. By the end of the year, I had even been awarded the perfect attendance award, along with four other kids who seemed equally as obedient as I was. What’s also interesting is that my parents weren’t super strict with me at all. They laid down ground rules but were very nonchalant about enforcing them. I think what was really happening with me was that my sense of worth and acceptance was completely tied to how well I did and what they would think of me. I didn’t spend a lot of time asking myself what my purpose was simply because it had been laid out very clearly—do what your parents say and make them proud.