#AtoZChallenge: J Like Just…

It’s just a word, just a tiny, short little word and yet the word “just” can have such a massive impact on what you say or how you make a person feel.

Think about all those moments this little word made you feel better. When you woke up in the middle of the night, scared and you realize that everything was just a bad dream. Or when you fell and in this split of a second assessed the damage only to realize that it was just a little scratch. Or when thought your best friend will move away forever and you are told that he or she is actually just going on a short trip… How good did “just” made you feel then?

But then there’s the other side to the tiny, little word “just”. If you want so, it has an evil face…

Remember the the times “just” made you feel bad or maybe just a little bit less good than you’d like to feel?

We’ve all encountered those moments. We’ve all been through and I bet you are just thinking about one of those moments right now! Here are only a couple of examples:

• When you come home excited that you did not totally screw up the test and your parents look at it and tell you that it’s just a B minus…
• When you are thrilled about having found what you’d like to do in the future and you are told that what you want to do would just be good enough to be a hobby…
• When people tell you that you are just a girl…
• When people tell you that you are just not good enough…
• When people tell you that you are just not tall enough…
• When people tell you that your effort was just not good enough…
• When your reputation is just not good enough…
• When you are asked what you do for a living and you tell them that you spend the day with your kids and the look at you and tell you “Oh, so you are just a mom”…
• And one of my favorites: Oh, it’s just me (or just him, just her, just that guy, just that girl)…

The list could go on and on and on. I bet you’d be able to add stuff to it…

What I found fascinating is, how much we actually let this tiny word control how we feel. How much we let it define ourselves. If that lady would have not added the “just” into her sentence she would have simply said: “Oh, you are a mom.” Sounds different, right?

And we are never only “just” us, it’s never “just” him or her or that guy or girl. It’s me! It’s her! It’s him! We are not “just” someone!

It’s time that we cut the negative “just” out of our lives and focus more on it’s nice side. After all it is simply just a tiny little word…

Inspired by the A-Z Challenge