There are times where we have to be selfish.

Ever since I was young, I’ve been scared of the dark. Well, not technically the dark. More like what is in the dark. I remember watching The Mummy with my parents when I was in primary school. I remember going to bed with the image of a decomposed body wrapped in bandages coming to get me and bugs that eat you from the inside out. I remember waking up screaming because I had a nightmare where I had bugs crawling underneath my skin. Hundreds of them. Thousands perhaps. From then on, I’ve watched a few with ghosts and dead people. Freaked the living daylights out of me. Still do.

But I’ve realized something today. Well, tonight. Not long ago. I’ve realized after having another argument with mum about the internet-thing. Recently, I’ve decided that I should have internet on my laptop because I’ve decided that I am going to put the foot down about this messing around business and hardcore the next few weeks leading up to the exams. But on the holidays, I need a (cheap) way to contact friends about exam questions and email my tutor or teachers about questions. But most of all, I believe that I can control myself. No more messing about and really knuckle down and study. Excuse the clichés.

While getting ready for shower, I’ve realized that it really doesn’t matter what other people think. It doesn’t matter that mum thinks that I’m just going to mess around and not work now that I have the computer. I mean, if I was her and due to my track record, I’ll probably be thinking the same thing. It doesn’t matter what my friends, family, teachers, tutors, that guy I met on the bus think about me. What really counts is me. Selfish as it sounds, think about it. This year is my final year at high school. Exams are fast approaching like a runaway train. As much as I like to extend time and fit more practice exams in, I want exams to come so I can prove to others, but mainly myself what I can do. Afterall, this is my life. I have to start taking responsibility. I have to stop blaming other people for my faults. I need to accept my good and bad, and run with it. Make it something big and be satisfied. It doesn’t matter if your teacher secretly doesn’t think you’ll even get to uni, because you’re not trying to satisfy them. My biggest realization is that whatever I’m doing from now forth is for me, myself and I. Not anybody else. Not to please mum and dad, teachers and tutors. Not to show off to my friends. But for me. I am after all my worst enemy and strongest critic. Maybe being hard on myself is a good thing.

In relation to what I said at the start, I’m not scared what’s in the dark. I’m scared of the future and what is coming. Because I don’t know what is coming, it’s dark. But if I have confidence in myself and brush off all the judgments that are weighing me down, I’m going to sprint into that darkness and not be afraid. In the word of Robert Frost, ‘let the night be too dark for me to see, let what will be be’. I have no control what life is going to throw at me, but I do have control of the present. However, in order to gain control of the present, I need to trust my own judgment and acknowledge that life isn’t going to be a breeze. Most of all, I need to accept myself. This is who I am. I don’t need the world’s judgments to define who I am. I am I. Nothing and no one can change my life unless I allow them to. Before gaining the approval of society, I need to gain the approval from myself. And in order to do that, I need true self-belief and hard work. From this, I will gain my confidence and my own approval. This is what will shield me from society’s arrows and it is a shield that cannot be broken.