Our Greatest Enemy

Welcome to the sister article of Death To Cringe Culture! In our first installment, we talked about the fundamentals that allow self-expression to be fostered and grow into your happiest self. Dismantling your dependence on conformity, breaking past societal shame and embracing change, and saying a good old “screw you” to cringe culture! Now, it’s time to get even more real. As much as social institutions guide our understanding of what is acceptable and what is not, and therefore curbing our responses to such limitations, we are ultimately our greatest critics. Sometimes, the greatest enemy to our self-development is ourselves.

A Hard Truth About The Self We Need To Accept

Cliche, I know, but it’s you who changes your clothes multiple times before going out. It’s you who considers skipping class because you feel horrible and are worried your appearance reflects that. It’s you who answers vaguely when asked about yourself and your interests. It’s you who stays up until 4:00 AM, stressing over how you replied to those questions, overwhelmed by the prospect of judgment, of misunderstanding, or of changing how they view you entirely. It’s your voice in your head that repeats your deepest insecurities, even if motivated by the words of others. It’s your thoughts. Your anxieties. But that doesn’t mean they are you. Change is an evolutionary necessity. Let’s do what our sister article says, and embrace it, together. Here is a hard truth about the self that we need to accept, in order to be ourselves truly.

Your Fear Of A ‘What-If-Future’ Is Ruining Your Present

How many times have you isolated yourself in a dark, depressive quiet contemplating if you cited that one quotation right in your recent paper; what if your professors actually hate you and by showing up at their office hours you are actually proving yourself to be incompetent? Worrying that the reason your friend hasn’t texted back–what if it’s because they are annoyed by your presence? Fretting over how much excitement you can show when visiting a convention with your roommates–what if they think you’re a gross, weird nerd?

Now add this one to your list of anxieties;

What if the world was made out of pudding?

Now, this phrase emerged in popularity from Tumblr reposts and Tik Tok comments applying the question in response to an OP’s impossible or absurd hypothetical. A satiric and lighthearted reaction. I, however, ask you to take both the literal and symbolic meanings in stride.

Assuming you don’t possess the power of simultaneous desert manifestation, if such a thing were to happen, it certainly wouldn’t be your fault. Nor could you do anything to stop its approach. The likelihood of that ever happening is either nearly impossible, or incredibly unlikely. If anything, perhaps there is merely a global discount of puddings or a resurgence in their popularity. Outcomes truly small and insignificant in the grand length of your life.

The exact events of today will not finitely determine those of tomorrow, those of the next few years, nor those of the rest of your life.

What if you got that test question wrong? What if the world was made of pudding?

What if you change your mind about your current identity? What if the world was made of pudding?

What if I’m wrong about what I want to do? What if the world was made of pudding?

Of course, your choices and actions matter. Of course, your behaviour and commitments have an impact on you and others. But those personal, anxiety prodding “what-if” questions that plague your every decision, your every voiced word, your every movement do not. Not in the long run. They feel like hell to go through now, and I certainly don’t recommend the experience (trust me, I have tried to find a cure for my own insecurities, results remain inconclusive), but when we look back on these moments in the time to come, they will matter to our happiness.

If the world is turning into pudding, might as well just try your best anyway. To make mistakes and learn from them. To be cringe or judged. Only you know what you truly enjoy, so actually enjoy it.

It’s your emotions, not others, so act for you.