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Kaleb Zaloga

Professor Dewey

ENG101 13463

27 February 2019

This I Believe

A word that I used to rarely say to people, is now something I use to have control over

my life. The word is such a strong word that it influences all decisions in your life. It is one of

the biggest choices you can make as a person, and it takes a lot of self control. The word that I

am speaking of is no. I believe that the word no can truly impact your life in a positive way.

I used to be someone that would always be there for someone no matter what. It did not

matter if that person was there for me, if I cared about them I was there for them. This attitude

made me feel very negative about myself, making me feel like I wasn’t good enough for these

people to care about my feelings. I felt that everyone hated me and that I was only here for others

gain, like a pawn in a chess game. This caused a spew of mental problems that I still deal with,

things like depression and anxiety, that I deal with daily. There was a certain point, right before I

graduated high school, when I realized that I should not be pushed around like this. I was feeling

so walked over and empty that there was no motivation to do anything in life, so I decided that I

shouldn’t feel like this anymore.

At first this concept of fixing myself was very difficult and I thought that I would lose

everyone around me, but I realized that school was ending and I could start fresh. To do this I

had to remove the negative people from my life, which was pretty easy because I wouldn’t be

seeing them everyday anyway. Once I got through that step next was making more time for
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myself, small things like going to buy coffee or buying a shirt I really like. The majority of the

process was about self love, but also learning how to say no to people when I don’t wanna do

something or it doesn’t make me feel good. It is a big learning curve but something you learn

over time, and a lot of the process I was by myself not trusting other people. Once I finally got to

the point where I start meeting new people, I still had to take my time and figure out how to deal

with these situations.

It definitely took time but I finally think I can make the right decisions to make myself

happy. Sometimes those decisions aren’t always what other people want but it’s not their

decision to make. This is your life and sometimes the right decision to make, is no.