The Gollum Mindset

"Where once was light, Now darkness falls. Where once was love, Love is no more. Don't say goodbye… Don't say I didn't try... These tears we cry are falling rain… For all the lies you told us… The hurt, the blame! And we will weep to be so alone… We are lost! We can never go home… So in the end, I will be what I will be. No loyal friend was ever there for me… Now we say goodbye… We say you didn't try... These tears you cry have come too late… Take back the lies the hurt, the blame! And you will weep when you face the end alone… You are lost! You can never go home… You are lost! You can never go home…" - Gollum's song by Emiliana Torrini

      Growing up I has what I now call the Gollum mindset. Gollum, formerly Sméagol, was respectable, had friends, he was one of the people. Then, he made a mistake, a horrid mistake at that, but he let that define the rest of his life. Everything he ever did from that point on was majorly, if not completely, influenced by the shame he had let consume him over that mistake.

      By the time he really enters the story in the lord of the rings he looks completely different, he crawls around, he beats himself up when he’s upset, and he is so very alone. He is unwanted, un-liked, a reject of society. Can you relate? I did, and chances are some of you do too. Feeling like you don’t really fit in with others socially is pretty common. For me, I looked like Gollum, literally! I was painfully skinny growing up and incredibly short till I turned 14. I never felt like one of the “cool guys”. I wasn’t strong, or fast, or big. I never really felt like I fit in because I just didn’t look the part. It took me years before I finally came to the realization that this is all part of growing up and becoming yourself. After years and years of feeling alone, not fitting in, being socially awkward, I finally got to this point where I realized the problem wasn’t who I was, it was how I thought I was.

      For those of you who know me, you’ll know that I have a special place in my heart for those who feel alone. Harris poll did a study in 2017 showed about 72% of Americans feel alone. This number shocked me when I first read it. When you experience the feeling of loneliness you think everyone else is ok, that everyone else feels social, that everyone else is happy and confident. When you feel alone, ironically enough, you feel alone. You don’t think anyone else is going through what you’re going through. Discovering that almost three quarters of us are all going through this was a profound discovery for me.

      After discovering that so many people go through this experience of loneliness I was left wondering…. How? I found a study done by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine with nine different doctors that focused on social media. Studying users of social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, and 6 others they discovered that the time you spend on social medias is directly linked to how lonely you feel. After becoming a social media user I can completely understand their conclusions. Social Media is all about the highlights of everyone’s life, you see all the good, and rarely the bad. I myself have recently fallen pray to this. There was about a month long period where I felt like I was the only one of my friends not traveling overseas. I had some friends in France, others in the Caribbean, others in Europe, another in China. Social media made me feel like I was inferior because I wasn’t traveling abroad. HOW STUPID CAN I BE?! I started to feel less because all of like 5 or 6 of the hundreds of friends I have were traveling and I wasn’t. I was so focused on where they were and where I wasn’t that I forgot to take a step back and remember how blessed I am and how wonderful my life is.

      This finally gets me to the whole point of this post. You. Well, actually. Not you! Gollum’s problem is he could never see past himself, he was driven mad because of that one mistake he made that caused himself to leave his kind behind. That song by Emiliana Torrini talks of how alone he feels because no one else did enough.... but in reality, it was because he didn't do enough, he didn't move past himself. Did you ever realize how selfish loneliness can be? It makes you the biggest person in the world in the sense that you are so focused on how inferior you feel that you never are able to see the people around you. One of the many important lessons my parents taught me growing up is that life is not about you. It took me years to begin to understand it, and, make no mistake, I still have my shortcomings. The point is, who are you focused on? If you ever feel socially awkward, if you ever wish you had more confidence, if you ever wanted to be different, think less of yourself. To be confident is not to believe you’re perfect and don’t need any help, It is to accept that you aren’t perfect, but be okay with that. It’s okay to make a fool of yourself sometimes, it’s okay to not be okay, it is okay to laugh and cry and be whoever you are.  Lonely? Don’t seem to fit in? Afraid of what others are thinking? Don’t worry, be happy! Life’s not about you! 😊