The grass is greener? Not always…

I had a very profound thought a while back - in fact it was about two years ago. While preparing myself for a major life change and total personality makeover, I came to the realization that I might not be destined for a life free of social anxiety. Maybe no matter how hard I tried, I would always be fighting my true nature and forcing myself to be someone I was never meant to be.

If this were true, then I was wasting my life hating who I was and being miserable. If I had simply let me be me, would I have been happier? I was never happy where I was because I believed I was defective in some way. I was comparing myself to my own preconceived notion of who I needed to be in order to live happily. Was this “ideal” personality really what I wanted, or needed, in order to be happy, or was it simply a distorted ideal endorsed by most of society.

How was I defective, and in comparison to what, and who’s model? Could I simply accept myself at face value, press on with life and be happy? Could I have simply molded my life successfully around social phobia? Hmm… They do say that acceptance is the hardest part.

Those who strive to be rich are often disappointed once they reach their financial goals. Many are not any happier – actually many are a lot less happy. It’s hard to visualize this when one is poor, however!

Was I setting proper goals for myself? Were the goals realistic? Would I be disappointed once (if) I achieved them? I needed to think carefully about what I really wanted and what was actually possible.

Ok, so two things I needed to keep in mind:

1. Was it possible to flush my old personality in exchange for a new one? Highly unlikely, after all, we are who we are.

2. Even if I was successful in accomplishing step1, would it be everything I thought it would be, and would I be comfortable in this new lifestyle? – probably not.

I spent most of my life thinking that social anxiety was a curse. I blamed it for everything that went wrong and every opportunity I had missed out on. I suppose it was true in a way, but things aren’t always black and white. I also had good qualities, and I would not have traded them for anything.

I have many interests and talents that I enjoy, and would not want to change any of that.

I know outgoing people who display traits that I would never want. Greed, selfishness, aggressiveness, are behaviors that are often left unchecked in the extravert. These people are totally oblivious as to how obnoxious they are. They are scorned and avoided by others, but don’t care. I don’t want to be thought of as a big mouth, a know-it-all, or as one of those people who corner you at parties and bore you to death with their mindless rambling. If anything, social anxiety at least keeps one more in tune with their personality – a little too “in tune”, actually.

Ok, so getting back to my point – I decided that that social anxiety was getting in the way of my happiness. However, I determined that I did not need a total overhaul. As I mentioned, there are many parts of my personality that I like and would not want to change.

I decided to make a list of things that disturbed and depressed me – a list of things that I thought were wrong in my life. As an example:

-I had no friends.
-I had no girlfriend
-I was poor
-I had a mindless job
-I could not talk to any more than two people at a time
-I could not talk to people I didn’t know
-I feared public places
-I had a major blushing problem
-I hated my appearance
-I felt inferior to everyone
-I could not speak to authority figures
-I could not be assertive
and the list goes on…

I then made a list of my attributes:

-I had a university education
-I was caring and down-to-earth
-I was a good listener
-I was humble
-I could carry on a good conversation with the right person
-I was ok looking (not a troll anyway)
-I had a supportive family
-I had my health

Next, I looked at both lists and tried to find things that were linked, for example:

I was poor and had a mindless job, but I had an education that would allow me to get a better job, but once I had that job, I’d screw it up because I could not speak to people or groups. So the obvious conclusion would be to work on my people skills, not to be like those I admired and envied, but just enough to get the job done.

I was out of shape and a bit overweight, but I had my health, so I would try to get in shape and lose a bit of weight to improve my appearance. I wasn’t aiming to become perfect, but just enough to make me feel better.

I could not speak to groups, but I was also not obnoxious when I did talk to people. I was a good listener and could carry a conversation under the right circumstances. I was more likeable than many outgoing people.

Quite often, I find myself admiring good-looking, outgoing people, but I’m not sure if that’s exactly what I want for myself. There is a lot of overhead and maintenance with being confident and popular. I personally value the time I spend alone and feel better not being the center of attention.

So I made a list of things I needed to do. Some were easy and some seemed impossible. Some were short-term goals and others were much more long-term. I felt better just knowing that I was not aiming for the moon. I felt better because I wasn’t beating myself up because I could not measure up to some fictional “perfect being”.

I had a list of reasonable goals – I just needed a way to start implementing them. That was the hard part and most of what this site will be about.

Happy New Year!

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