merit, worth, and love.

you know, i think i've never grown out of the constant hungry need for the approval of others. especially that of my loved ones, even though i may not seem to outwardly hold their opinion in especial esteem. i thought it was a phase that one could grow out of, a bad habit i'd kick with the passing of time and the passage into adulthood. fool that i am, i think that growing up automatically makes me wiser and less insecure. i have found out today that that is absolutely not true, and i've been happily deluded all this while. i'm sorely insecure about too many things, therefore i need the approval and affirmation of the people close to me. i cling to their approval as if it were a life raft, and i'm beginning to think that the positive opinions of others are more important to me than i previously thought. sometimes, it's all i cling on to to stop myself from freefalling down into an abyss of nothingness, of utter worthlessness. now, perhaps there is something wrong in all of this, this extreme form of self-deprecation that i put myself through. and i know it. i can see how it is so wrong, and yet i just indulge in bouts of insecurity, needing the approval and praise of others - just for that temporary high. that'd make me a junkie in a sense, just chasing that high. living from high to high. then when the high of the approval fades, i start to crashland down to reality and push myself to do well again so that the high of the praise seeps in again. the approval of my parents, the affirmation that my friends give me, the acknowledgement of my own achievements as precisely that - i'm addicted to it. i need it to be okay.

so, lately, i've been feeling like the stupid kid in the house again. i'm not sore, i'm not jealous - far from it. but somehow i can't help feeling like my parents overlook me as a moderately intelligent person, and see me as some sort of unclever and ordinary. too dull compared to my too brilliant sister. and i wouldn't mind it so much, except that i wish it didn't get to me as it does. i thought i'd outgrown comparing, outgrown trying to prove that i'm some sort of brainy, perhaps. and it saddens me that hey, maybe it'll never leave me. it gets to me how stupid i feel when i think about myself in that sense, as if somehow i haven't achieved anything worth mentioning in my academic life in the past 21 years. so maybe the news that i got the double major for literature and communications & new media got lost in the whole whirlwind of whether sister should go to SMU law or not. i mean comparatively, i've achieved nothing, it would seem. it's just a double major, not a double degree. even though i'm carrying the equivalent workload of a double degree student. so maybe law or medicine or life science, even, is easier to remember than "literature and communications". i'd like to think it were so, instead of allowing the thought that maybe they just can't be bothered to pay attention, to remember, to seep into my head. i'm a big girl now, i don't need my parents approval of my school life to make me feel as if i'm actually something. i'm worth something even if it appears otherwise. so maybe i'm not the brainy one in the family, i can deal with that. i am just telling myself incessantly that being smarter does not merit more love. although logically speaking, being smarter would mean that one is worth more in terms of lifetime achievements - and that would hence naturally attract more attention, love, and concern. but nevermind, i will try to keep the silliness at bay. i am upset and have been upset for some time, finding tears trickling down my eyes at inconvenient times of the day whenever i think about all this. but there has to be a better way to deal with this, other than just feeling sorry for myself, and crying utterly useless tears for seemingly no reason.