This is important to note: While some recent events may have initiated the thoughts in this blog entry, please know that there is no motive here, aside from soliciting advice (why it’s not private). These are the thoughts and questions that I am asking myself in my head to hopefully figure out how to better handle things in the future. I am all ears, and any advice that my readers can offer is very appreciated. -=brett=-

BEGIN RANT :: I really don’t know what to do anymore. I am a person. I have emotions, sometimes things bother me. Sometimes those things are strictly internal, sometimes they are caused by a person, and sometimes, it is a combination of both. At any rate, I am justified in ANY feeling I have whether anyone agrees with it or not. They are MY feelings GOD-DAMNIT and I am allowed to have them! *Sigh* now that that is out of my system… :: END RANT

Here is my quandary:

Any time that I have just tried to be relaxed about something, indifferent… people ask me, “What is wrong!? You are not yourself.” So that tells me that I do not have the aura of a relaxing person. This, to me, is a problem because one thing above all others that people like about other people is the ability to be “laid-back”.

I know that I am a take-charge kind of guy. Anyone that has EVER befriended me, worked with me, or otherwise interacted with me will tell you this. It is who I am. But it is seriously screwing with me. Because of who I am, and the traits that I possess, I am beginning to think that the perception my friends and acquaintances have of me is that:

I am impatient.

I am too quick to point out when something is wrong.

I let small things trigger an out-of-proportion reaction.

I cannot just relax and play games.

I cannot just hang out.

I have to have a purpose or I won’t do it.

I know what I want.

I am bossy.

I am not fun to be around all the time.

I am picky.

I have acknowledged this before… and I have taken action to really change the “negative” things on that list in the past (not recently, but I have changed them before). Don’t get me wrong, it is not all bad, but some things, I felt, could have changed. So I have gone out, been relaxed, tried to go with the flow, didn’t say anything outside of normal conversation, and didn’t try to steer the group. I just existed… and people would then ask “What is wrong?!” I don’t get it. I cannot be me without people thinking those terrible things about me, and I cannot change because then I am not being me… so where is the middle ground? I know, I know… some people are going to tell me that I should really not care about what others think, that I should just be me… and to those people, I say you may be right, for you… but I really DO care what people think of me. I don’t want to put people off because I am sometimes so harsh. I don’t know… It’s like an identity crisis. A paradox… if I act the way I am, then people will not think good things of me, but when I change, people remark that I am not being me. It is so confusing.

And another thing… are you or are you not supposed to talk about things that bother you?

I still do not understand when it is appropriate, or the proper manner in which, to bring up topics that are causing me problems. A lot of times, I just have to relax and let it go, and that works when I actually let things go… but if I bottle things up, they explode – which never ends well.

Of course, most people have told me that I should really speak up and say that something is bothering me to the appropriate person, but sometimes, that really just does not go well at all, and I am NOT a fan of conflict, or at least, I try not to cause conflict… but the more I think about it, the more I realize that all I do is cause conflict. I don’t know how this happened. I just want peace… I want people to get along, and I want people to have fun and be relaxed. Why can’t I accomplish this? And when can I know the right time to talk about what bothers me, and how do I decided the right mechanism? Should I email, talk, call, text, or just avoid it all together? I just do not know.

I have always told people that it is best to just communicate to the person the best way you can… sometimes, things come up in the middle of the day and you can’t talk to them in person, but you feel like it is really pressing, so you text or email… but then, the email is read wrong, or the intention of the message was not realized. How do you dig out of that? No one calls anyone anymore, so we don’t do that… so what then? I don’t know.

And what is the best way of dealing with the situation when you are communicating that something bothers you only to hear that the person to whom you are communicating thinks that you are wrong to have those feelings? To me, that is the ultimate insult… It is like the person is saying that you do not have the right to be bothered by something.

I guess I just still have a lot of soul searching to do… and I guess I really need to start accepting who I am, and what I am… and getting used to the fact that people are going to think bad things, so why worry about it?

-=brett=-