Normally you'll hear this word being tossed around by young adult women as they scroll through their newsfeed and make snide remarks about their social media "friends." They'll post a passive aggressive tweet about their boyfriend's ex or like a picture of a person they hate out of spite, and instead of trying to hide the fact that they're 100% being immature, they embrace it. Their defense is "I'm petty, deal with it."
I have heard this word come out of a lot of people's mouths recently, and a few months ago, I was one of the people who thought it was perfectly acceptable to be petty. Sitting around with people who had mutual enemies was my favorite past time. It felt good to tear down other people until I realized how emotionally draining it actually was. Being "petty" wasn't affecting anyone but myself and I came to the realization that I was just being miserable.
Maybe there are still some people out there that think it's acceptable to be petty, but it isn't. How and why is it okay to accept such a negative label? As smart, talented young women, why are we subjecting ourselves to such a low standard?
After hearing that god awful word one too many times, I decided to google the actual definition. Merriam-Webster defines petty as "having little or no importance or significance." Intrigued, I then looked up synonyms which are: trivial, trifling, minor, small, unimportant, insignificant, inconsequential, inconsiderable, and negligible, just to name a few. I immediately wondered if people knew that this is what they were calling themselves. I mean, there is no way that people see themselves as "unimportant" and are actually okay with it.
I began to think that people probably had no idea how ridiculous they sounded when they said, "I'm petty," so I decided to enlighten them. For a day I chose to replace the word petty with one of its synonyms. Embracing one's pettiness will get cheers of admiration from peers, but admitting to your "insignificance" will get weird stares and awkward silence. It was a slightly odd experiment, however, I think it proved my point: there's nothing okay about acting trifling, negligible or inconsiderable. Honestly, it's downright inexcusable. Being "petty" is never cute; not when you're a 5-year-old and certainly not when you're 20 something years old. It's a flaw, an extremely fixable flaw, but still not a quality that should ever be embraced.
"Petty," isn't a birth defect that someone is born with that's incurable, its continuous immature behavior that needs to be corrected. It's a side effect of being miserable. Only people who have aspects of their life they would like to change are the people that are worried enough to belittle someone else. The people that label themselves as "petty" are usually right: they are unimportant and insignificant in the grand scheme of things. The people that you're trying to tear down with little shots and sloppy passes probably don't care or are even aware of what you're doing, but by being "petty," you are slowly killing yourself with your negative thoughts. Constantly holding onto negativity will destroy you, and I am speaking from experience when I say to let it go, because caring about what other people are doing is never going to make your life any better.
People who are constantly acting in an immature and passive aggressive fashion will push people away. No one has to (or should have to) tolerate such belligerent behavior. If you really are calling yourself petty and you're proud of that, don't be surprised when everyone that cares about you suddenly stops, because I promise it's just a matter of time.
After I looked up the synonyms for petty, I chose to look up the antonyms. Words like generous, benevolent, unselfish and noble popped up. Words that represent the strong caring women we should be, not insecure girls that society likes to depicts us as. I challenge everyone who uses the word "petty" to describe themselves to stop, because I don't know about you, but I would rather be generous and selfless over inconsequential and small any day.
