Stuck in a Paradox. We Need to Open Our Mind Essay Example
My entire life, living in a paradox was the only thing I knew and I was brainwashed, causing me to believe life to be a bit different than what some may consider a “normal life”. My parents 24 year age difference, I saw as normal. Why? Because everyone in my family had made it seem that way, including my parents. As time went by, I started growing a little older, I became aware that most people in a relationship of some sort in our modern society were never that far in age. It was acceptable in my great grandparents time but for sure not accepted in our modern society in the United States.
Throughout the brainwashing in my life my father always belittled my mother and I. There wasn’t anything I could ever be adequate in, no possibility that I could excel at anything I would do and or even have any of the potential a fair amount of my mentors and peers would advise my parents I had. My father planted a seed in my brain from as long as I can remember, “you will never amount to anything”. If I became ill or hurt, I automatically was useless. I didn't have permission to speak on my life at home at school because I was told that there were consequences and that I’d get adopted or go into a foster home and get treated even worse or raped. That was my biggest fear, getting treated worse. As I grew older I developed terrible anxiety and extreme low self esteem. No one ever quite understood it and knew no one would ever. There had been plenty I had been hiding from everyone. My mother too, would defend my father, and I couldn’t say anything against it. Tormented and terrified, I had no support but a few friends that I trusted. Throughout my whole life I never thought I was worthy of more or that I could ever amount to be but I knew there had to some way out it.
As I transitioned into a middle schooler, my parents decided that living in Paraguay suited me better. At 12 years old I moved to Paraguay and stayed until I was 14. Talk about drastic change, I went from living in one of the richest counties in North America, Arlington, to live in the middle of nowhere in a third world country with my grandparents. If it hadn’t been for moving to Paraguay I wouldn’t have experience the two completely different beliefs systems and mindsets from two countries that I identify with. The paradigm shift had seemed too unreal to me, how different everyone's belief system was in Paraguay vs the United States. Having experienced living in both nation’s I learned how much the cultures contrasted and what similarities they had. During my time in Paraguay, I put myself into a paradigm that was culturally acceptable to cause less drama with my peers.
My grandmother was an extreme strict catholic, there was literally nothing I was allowed to do. That was also when I started questioning how I felt about religion numerous times, because I was confused on how many people believed this catholic religion so passionately. Till this day I remember asking my grandmother what made her believe in god so greatly. If she had seen him in person and if he had told her something precious, so that she could be loyal to him and the catholic religion for the rest of her life. She goes on to tell me that her faith in god was what drove that strong belief of hers into the catholic religion. I was shocked, “so there’s nothing real or evidence on god other than this bible?” and that’s when I started getting offensive and that’s when that conversation came to an end.
Around the time when I was 14 years old, my parents decided it was time for me to move back into the states. I began to have a fuller understanding that facts should outweigh my personal upcoming beliefs, the ones that I had been taught growing up. After having the conversation about god with my grandmother it had brought me to deeply examine my current beliefs, I came to a realization that I had to give up a lot of my beliefs because the truth of the matter is there was no actual facts on my current beliefs. Everything I believed at some point in my life was something I was taught to believe.
Day and night I’d search on youtube or watch documentaries on people that were in similar scenarios as my life or even worse. What did those people that started homeless, were raped or were born in poverty do to get out of that? I wanted to know what they did to get out of that paradox they were stuck in. How could I too, change the paradox that I was born into.
Gearing towards the end of high school, at this point in my life I had questioned everything I ever believed, why and what made me feel worthless. That’s when I knew I had a long way to go to change my beliefs and from what I was taught as a kid. I didn’t agree with anything that I believed at the time. Making a paradigm shift into my own life was the only way I could fix myself for a better outcome. All these questions started clicking in my brain, why was it that I was so insecure? Why did I think so negatively about myself? Why couldn’t I be educated? It was my dad and my family. I started to perceive that if I did something completely different than what I was used to, my outcome would be different. I was 15 years old, a junior in high school when I became a hostess at a restaurant. Keep in mind prior to this I couldn’t present anything to anyone, not even one on one. That was my very first step into a paradigm shift in my own life, I was terrified to be the face of a restaurant but I had to face my fears head straight to get to the Pamela 2.0 I was trying to become (the best version of myself). Now I’ve been a hostess at 5 different restaurants and at three of the five of them the maitre d.
Taking on a job where I was the weakest in ability for, or so I thought, had been the biggest impact into transitioning my mindset in every aspect possible. It just became more transparent to me, if that small change of belief that I “couldn’t present” made such a positive impact on my life, what more change could I do. Forcing myself to get out of the habit with the negative mindset I had grown up with. To do so there was a lot of steps, I had to cut communication with my father/family and that also included anyone that didn’t have big goals in life. For a really long time I found myself very lonely, because I wanted to be successful and if that meant cutting off childhood friends that just wanted to smoke weed, party or literally spend all of their money on clothes I had to do so. I needed to be influenced by people with similar goals, so that naturally, my actions would change to meet theirs and turn my energy into positive habits that would become my new routine towards getting closer to succeed in life the way I envisioned.
If I had not accepted change and didn’t open my mind to see what I chose as my selected beliefs, how to organize my beliefs and deciding how to interpret the details in the way my parents taught me to believe life was not how I wanted to continue seeing the world. I would, still be stuck in a paradox and I wouldn’t be here writing this paper. Now, I keep my mind open to everything, different cultures, different theories, different ways because a paradigm shift could potentially open a whole new world you never thought could have existed for being comfortable with the patterns in your life and not open to change.
