The more comfortable I get with who I am, and the closer I become to being the person I've always seen myself as being, the more interested I find myself becoming in other people's lives. I can only imagine the huge repercussions that will have for someone who feels they have been anti-social their entire life.
Here’s the bitter pill, man: you’re either going to be elated or excessively disappointed. There really isn’t a stable middle ground when one begins to consider the other inhabitants of the great rock.
The saving grace is that you’re going to get to experience one or the other of the aforementioned sensations every time you dig into the meat of a new person. Here’s hoping it’s more of the former than the latter. However it turns out, I urge you to follow the advice of Ze Frank: http://tr.im/wtEQ
I’ve always been very mechanical and logical about life. No emotion (well, very little emotion). I found it difficult (and still do) to have small talk with people because it felt so pointless and useless (I originally wrote that as smalltalk until I realized that’s the programming language :p ). But I somehow always knew that it wasn’t pointless or useless; I knew there was a very good reason for it. I just couldn’t conjure up even the smallest bit of interest in it. When you have absolutely no interest in something, it’s pretty damn hard, not to mention uncomfortable, to fake your way through.
But as my little aside mentioned, now that I’m becoming more and more comfortable with myself and with where I am in life, what I’m capable of, etc., I suddenly find myself (somewhat) interested in what others have to say about their lives. Small talk is suddenly becoming an opportunity to practice a skill that I know I’m lacking. And it’s kinda fun–pushing myself beyond boundaries that I wouldn’t have dared pass only a few months earlier.
don’t be scared of other people. push your boundaries. stay strong. stay true to yourself and everything will happen the way that it should. a lot of people suck but most of them don’t. try your hardest to keep an open mind and open heart. that’s what i do. also, it helps to smile at random people. most of the time they return the smile….maybe it’s just cause i have boobs…smiling at strangers really helped me come out of my shell. that and realizing that, no matter how “perfect or “together” someone may seem to you, we are all fighting our demons and figuring out how to make peace with ourselves and who we actually are. i figure we all have a choice everyday: will we do the things we want to? do we do the things that make us feel good and happy? or do we choose to to close ourselves off to all of the experiences and beauty that this particular day may bring? i prefer the former but i’m an eternal optimist. i had more to say but i lost it. this comment is becoming way too long as it is…
Wow, thanks Jess! That’s very motivational stuff! 🙂 You should start a blog.