Cru’s Letter

If you want to change, you must become okay with being misunderstood.

And if change is uncomfortable for you, what makes you think other people are gonna be comfortable with it when you decide to?

You’re a mirror.

You give other people an opportunity to assess their own life and decisions and your desire to do things different will make them mad at their own reflection.

I didn’t go to college.

It was an easy decision to make internally and a hard one to make socially. When you’re a senior in high school, the only thing anybody cares about is what school you’re going to and I didn’t have an answer. While everyone was filling out loan applications in english class (yikes), I was thinking about how all of my successes and failures would fall on me.

I remember my heart racing when I’d go to a friends house to inevitably have their parents ask me the golden question and it didn’t matter what I said, I knew they thought I was making the wrong decision.

And I guess it makes sense. When you have nothing to show for the risk you want to take, why would someone believe in you, especially if they wouldn’t have the same courage?

Now, I knew exactly why I wanted to take a different path but it’s not easy to act on it when seemingly everybody is against you.

This is where the skill of accepting misunderstanding comes into play.

Imagine someone lying about you and then all you can do is sit there and take it. It feels pretty shitty when people get away with believing something about you that isn’t true but you should get used to that pit in your stomach because that’s what taking a different path feels like.

I had to swallow my pride constantly and be okay with people thinking I was going to fail because the other option was to be like them…

That’s the last thing I wanted.

The real thing you should work on is deflating your idea of what someone else’s opinion really means in the grand scheme of things.

Maybe you’re afraid that people will talk about you. They will.

Maybe you’re afraid that people won’t like you. They won’t.

And so what?

People are too consumed with their own shortcomings for their opinions on you to last.

So don’t be afraid to change because other people’s insecurities shouldn’t control your life.

-Cru

P.S. Check out my recent youtube video: