If you consider yourself even moderately successful in anyway, you must have some experience with taking risks. The chance of failure is what defines success, and without some element of risk, there is no chance of failure. I consider myself socially inept for the most part; I can be polite and if someone else initiates a conversation I can hold it up for quite some time. However, I tend to be distrusting and reluctant to reveal personal details, opinions or controversial thoughts unless I know someone well.
I maintain a cynical attitude towards society, and have been presented with no reason to feel otherwise in a while. What is terrifying for someone like me, who tries their very best to suppress emotions and attachments is the development of a new attachment, beginning to trust someone and secretly hoping that unlike everyone else they will change the cynical way with which you view the world. You expect disappointment, statistical evidence points to no other options, yet everyone wants to perceive the world as beautiful, and wants to find someone who will prove their cynicism wrong. There is nothing that the arrogantly cynical person wants more than to return to their naïveté and modify their jaded personality.
So how do you navigate emotions you try to repress and trust you keep only for those who have already made the effort to get close to you? How do you dispel the idea that people will only hurt you and isolation is the only way to feel safe and preserve your happiness? A part of this is cultivating more positive "habits of mind". Recently, in an attempt to cure myself of what I call "undiagnosed depression", I have taken to writing out my sources of anxiety troubling thoughts, writing ways to acknowledge them and figure out how to get rid of them. It is hard to view your own actions and perceptions from an unbiased perspective, but it is possible to try to detach from problems to solve them. This concept can also be applied to social interactions. If you don't trust someone, why not? What are you afraid of? Is there a good reason for you to have this fear?
Much of my anxiety when it comes to "new" people is related to a past experience. Is it justifiable to base preconceptions about someone on something that has happened to you in the past with a different person? What if your preconceptions are actually correct? There are personality types that I am more likely to trust: quiet people, people who have low self-esteem or people who demonstrate persistent interest in the things I say. I am wary of people who I perceive as being too beautiful, too outgoing or too eager to please others.
My half-conscious generalizations of personality types is possible one of my biggest flaws. More often than not this hurts me rather than helps. I have expectations that are either too high or too low and tend to place people on pedestals that they are too flawed to live up to. I initially blame them, realize I shouldn't, blame myself and fall into an unfortunate emotional cycle that revolves around a mixture of self-loathing and loathing of everyone else.
Acknowledging this problem and doing something about it are different things entirely. I face the problem of how to deal with someone who I like in a normal way without distorting their personality to fit an idealistic expectation of someone who can save me from my negativity. It sounds too depressing to have no expectations from anyone else. It seems like an isolated life; although I want to be the type of person who is okay with isolation, I don't know if I can be. I am searching for a practical way to modify my expectations to fit a realistic view of individuals. Expecting not to be saved from myself is better than expecting to be hurt. The question I face is how I can incorporate these thoughts into the ritual of my daily life.
Taking risks is the only way to eliminate my distorted world view, and the only way someone who perceives his/herself as socially inept can fall into normalcy. Emotional vulnerability and trusting someone who you would not normally trust due to preconception is one risk that has the potential to change my view of people. Basing your views of a person only on interactions with that person rather than turning them into idealized constructions takes a certain degree of risk as well. I am far from perfecting this, and in the midst of trying to cure myself of my troubled mind. I just thought I would share what is in my head in the vague hope that someone can actually relate to it and perhaps my thoughts will help them figure things out too. I imagine with persistence I can change myself rather than relying on others to fix me.
I maintain a cynical attitude towards society, and have been presented with no reason to feel otherwise in a while. What is terrifying for someone like me, who tries their very best to suppress emotions and attachments is the development of a new attachment, beginning to trust someone and secretly hoping that unlike everyone else they will change the cynical way with which you view the world. You expect disappointment, statistical evidence points to no other options, yet everyone wants to perceive the world as beautiful, and wants to find someone who will prove their cynicism wrong. There is nothing that the arrogantly cynical person wants more than to return to their naïveté and modify their jaded personality.
So how do you navigate emotions you try to repress and trust you keep only for those who have already made the effort to get close to you? How do you dispel the idea that people will only hurt you and isolation is the only way to feel safe and preserve your happiness? A part of this is cultivating more positive "habits of mind". Recently, in an attempt to cure myself of what I call "undiagnosed depression", I have taken to writing out my sources of anxiety troubling thoughts, writing ways to acknowledge them and figure out how to get rid of them. It is hard to view your own actions and perceptions from an unbiased perspective, but it is possible to try to detach from problems to solve them. This concept can also be applied to social interactions. If you don't trust someone, why not? What are you afraid of? Is there a good reason for you to have this fear?
Much of my anxiety when it comes to "new" people is related to a past experience. Is it justifiable to base preconceptions about someone on something that has happened to you in the past with a different person? What if your preconceptions are actually correct? There are personality types that I am more likely to trust: quiet people, people who have low self-esteem or people who demonstrate persistent interest in the things I say. I am wary of people who I perceive as being too beautiful, too outgoing or too eager to please others.
My half-conscious generalizations of personality types is possible one of my biggest flaws. More often than not this hurts me rather than helps. I have expectations that are either too high or too low and tend to place people on pedestals that they are too flawed to live up to. I initially blame them, realize I shouldn't, blame myself and fall into an unfortunate emotional cycle that revolves around a mixture of self-loathing and loathing of everyone else.
Acknowledging this problem and doing something about it are different things entirely. I face the problem of how to deal with someone who I like in a normal way without distorting their personality to fit an idealistic expectation of someone who can save me from my negativity. It sounds too depressing to have no expectations from anyone else. It seems like an isolated life; although I want to be the type of person who is okay with isolation, I don't know if I can be. I am searching for a practical way to modify my expectations to fit a realistic view of individuals. Expecting not to be saved from myself is better than expecting to be hurt. The question I face is how I can incorporate these thoughts into the ritual of my daily life.
Taking risks is the only way to eliminate my distorted world view, and the only way someone who perceives his/herself as socially inept can fall into normalcy. Emotional vulnerability and trusting someone who you would not normally trust due to preconception is one risk that has the potential to change my view of people. Basing your views of a person only on interactions with that person rather than turning them into idealized constructions takes a certain degree of risk as well. I am far from perfecting this, and in the midst of trying to cure myself of my troubled mind. I just thought I would share what is in my head in the vague hope that someone can actually relate to it and perhaps my thoughts will help them figure things out too. I imagine with persistence I can change myself rather than relying on others to fix me.
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