It takes a lot to make me feel small.
I am six foot, so it probably seems impossible for that to even happen. And in comparison to my height, my personality towers. Being the height that I am and being as outgoing as I am, the last adjective people would use to describe me would be small. I am usually the first to take initiative with group projects, socratic seminars, anything really that has to do with talking, I’m down for.
One day, however, In one of my extracurricular activities where I hold a leadership role, a group i was overseeing had been working on a project for a few weeks and were close to being done. Once they finished, the group brought their assignment to me for my critique. To say the least, their assignment needed some heavy editing before submission. One of the guys in the group got extremely defensive after I had said my piece about what needed to be changed. He would laugh and scoff when tried to tell him how he could fix the mistakes that were made. He would spit hushed daggers just loud enough for me to hear; daggers that tore through my confidence.
Even though I had been in doing this for the past three years, he made me feel as if i didn’t know what I was talking about. I felt like Alice after eating the cake that made her shrink. The diminishing words that I was being force fed made me smaller, and smaller. Later that day I found out that a male student sharing the same role as I did gave the same critiques with no scoffs and no daggers.
What was I doing wrong?
It took me awhile to realize that I was not in the wrong. There was no difference in the way I explained what needed to be changed and the way my male counterpart did. I had allowed someone else’s insecurities to attach to myself. Never again will I allow myself to be torn down by someone else. I advise the same to whoever reads this. Contentment with yourself is something that takes a lifetime to achieve, but you cannot do so if you allow people to stir up self doubt. I know better now than to let my strong qualities be diminished by a guy, or anyone. I know better know than to let myself shrink.