Work You Are Ashamed Of

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Today I saw on the forum the topic of a girl who is embarrassed to go to work as a cleaner or a waitress, and there is no education for more "prestigious" vacancies yet. And I remembered very vividly the incident that happened to me in my youth.

A small note: I grew up in a Belarusian city with a population of about 100 thousand people. My mother had a small clothing store where I worked as a salesman during the holidays.

One August day, a girl of 13-14 years old and her grandmother entered the shop. They were looking for pants for school. The girl herself, of course, wanted something fashionable, stylish, well-fitting. I offered her several models: black, monochromatic, and therefore not at risk of falling under the sanctions of the school morality police, but with a good cut. These were either tapered trousers or straight from the knee.

The girl tried on trousers, she liked some, but then her grandmother came into the game.

- No, they won't. We don't need trousers for a disco, but for school, you know? We study at school N, this is a serious school, we have very strict rules. We do not need this tight-fitting, we need a direct one, so that children think about school, and not about all sorts of nonsense.

The girl, half a minute ago, enthusiastically examining herself in the mirror, became noticeably sad. I understood her perfectly, because, firstly, at that time I myself graduated from school just a year ago. And I remembered how important appearance was to me and the other girls. But what is really there: he was one of the parameters that determine the social status among classmates.

Secondly, the school that I graduated from a year ago was school N. Therefore, I knew what the order was (including clothing).

I wanted to somehow support the girl who, according to my grandmother's will, risked going to school in trousers of the most unfashionable style at that time. And I said:

- You know, I also went to school N, and wore about the same trousers - this was absolutely true, because my mother left some clothes for me from her product - and no one made any comments to me about this.

Of course, I did not expect that I would be able to convince the elderly person - rather, I simply could not help but try. But her answer was even more unexpected:

- Well, look at who you end up working as! Let's go, - she left the shop, the girl hastily pulled the curtain of the fitting room, changed into her clothes and left after her grandmother.

I felt spat upon. The version of me ten years ago had not yet gone through psychotherapy, had not become a psychologist, had not learned not to depend on the assessments of others, and was not particularly sure of her own absolute value.

A version of me ten years ago graduated from school N with a gold medal a year ago, went to regional and republican Olympiads in informatics, and entered a prestigious radio engineering university in Minsk on a budget, graduated from the first year, and worked part-time in her hometown in my mother’s shop.

/ I eventually dropped out of that university for the sake of the psychology department, but that's a completely different story /

It's not a shame to work and earn money honestly. This is fine. And it's also normal that there will always be people who will find something to dig into. But if inside you, like a spreading oak tree with powerful roots, lives the belief that you are valuable, worthy, good, deserving of love - other people's attacks cannot seriously shake your sense of self. And if this belief is not there, working with a psychologist will help to develop it.