#254 Let's just be defiant

That person might laugh at me.
That person might hate me.

I am sometimes driven by such negative delusions.
When I was suffering from adjustment disorder, it went beyond the realm of delusion and became an obsession that ate away at my heart.

In fact, there have been times when I was laughed at and times when I was hated.
Of course, it hurt at the time, but it wasn't a wound that would end my life.
The fact that I am still living happily today is proof of that.

Thinking about it that way, perhaps I don't need to fear being laughed at or hated more than necessary.
It's okay to be laughed at, it's okay to be hated—!
In that way, it is important in life to deliberately be defiant.

Elementary school days.
I was made to be the referee for a basketball game in gym class.
For me, who had no interest in gym class or sports to begin with, that time was quite painful.
So I daydreamed. I was drawing manga at the time, and I was thinking about what kind of story I should draw.

And then, I missed the moment one of my classmates committed a double dribble.
"Hey, that was a double dribble, right? Why didn't you stop it?"
When I was pressed by my classmates and honestly replied, "Sorry, I wasn't looking," they hurled abuse at me.
That abuse stabbed my heart repeatedly.

For a while after that, I was branded in class as "the guy who can't even referee properly," and the surrounding classmates started treating me coldly. Because of this experience, I became extremely afraid of failure.

If I fail, that person might hate me.
If I fail, everyone might stab me with words again.

Even now that I am a working adult, there are moments when this experience flashes back.
Of course, at my current workplace, there is no one who would denounce me if I failed.
However, humans are inherently harsh toward the failures of others—that is what was imprinted on me by the experience above.

However, the classmates who denounced me back then do not exist in my current circle of friends.
At the time, the impact of being hated by them was significant, but when viewed in the unit of my own life, the impact of being hated there is extremely small.

Humans probably never exist in just one place.
Someday you graduate from elementary school, and you graduate from middle school, high school, and university.
You become a working adult, join a company, and while there is a possibility you will stay at that company forever, it is never the case that the people around you will be with you forever.

The surrounding environment will absolutely change with time.
Therefore, even if you are hated temporarily, that impact will surely disappear in the near future.

Thinking about it that way, I have come to think that fearing being hated or laughed at one by one is a huge waste.
If so, wouldn't it be a win to just be defiant?

It's okay to be hated now!
It's okay to be laughed at by anyone!
Please, hate me as much as you want, laugh at me.
If that helps the world, please, go ahead and hate me!

Of course, there is no need to say these words openly.
But when you encounter someone who is harsh or cold only to you, I feel it is important to have this much spirit, even if it is deliberate.

I feel no benefit in hating others.
And I think there is absolutely no need to deal with people who hate me.This is also a kind of defiance, but rather than dealing with people who hate me,
I want to create time with people who trust me.

In this world, billions of people are living.
Among them, it is natural that there are people you get along with and people you don't.
Even if there is someone who hates you, there must absolutely be people in this world who like you.

So, it's okay not to be afraid of being hated.
Rather, I think the phenomenon of being hated by someone is normal when viewed on a world scale.
So, let's live with full defiance.
At the very least, I will not hate you for reading this far.