I apologize... for nothing. I'm sorry if the way that I am..... bugs you.
And that is the truth. After reading this you should take away two messages.
1. Self help people can't help you.
2. Accept who you are and stop try to change yourself, because you can't.
All these self help people are as screwed up as you and me. They are writing to justify themselves, their actions and sometime to line their pockets. Take note, there is nothing wrong with you. Say it with me. "There is nothing wrong with me" Feel better? I do. You know why? Its because you can stop trying to "fix" yourself, "improve" yourself, "fulfill your potential" now. You are who you are, accept it, because you can't change it. Think you can? Well you can't, you are like a rubber band. You can stretch for a while, change shape but when you get tired, and you will, you will go back to your original shape. So enjoy your shape. Take what you are and move on. Live life as you are, not as you want to be. You will get further.
I have spent so much energy "growing" myself, "molding" myself. And I am the same. The only difference is that I was miserable because I couldn't change and felt that I should. Well I can't and now I don't want to. So I won't.
Guess what? I feel better now than after every single self help course I have ever taken or read. You want to know why? Because there is peace in acceptance. This all sounds like self help mumbo jumbo right? Maybe it is but it is also the truth. Accept yourself for who you are because if you don't NO ONE ELSE WILL!
It is so hard being someone else. And when you stop, or change or quit all those people you deceived will not like you anymore because you caused them a great inconvenience because you made them change their mind about you.
I have friends, good friends. They are good friends because I accept them for who their are. Even their faults.... especially their faults. I do not judge them, I accept them and live my life with them. I do not try to change them because that is harder than changing yourself.
Its like playing poker. You get all the cards you want except one. So use your "power of positive thinking" to "realize the card it wants to be". Does the card change? Nope. Play it, trade it. Win or lose with it. Its a fun game and if you are not having fun stop playing.
So just accept who you are, accept the others around you, stop trying to change yourself and everything around you and just live. Peace will descend upon you as long as you stop judging yourself.
Now piss off and go do something you enjoy. I won't judge you for it.
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3 comments:
You could have put this as a guest post at my blog and people would have enjoyed it.
I think where most people go wrong is that they can't separate or distinguish between the "internal self" - the real you - and the "external self" - job, habits, stuff, how you react to stimulus.
People who are not happy will try to fix it in various ways. Sometimes it is through a job change, or sometimes they try to change the way they react to a job (for instance).
They try to suck it up.
I know I tried that for years, and it didn't work. I wasn't listening to my internal self. My internal self was telling me what to do but I didn't see the line between what was outside and what was inside.
A common mistake, so I forgive myself ;)
I suspect that once you accept (and then, know) who you are, it becomes easier to align the external things with the internal.
At least, that's my experience.
My personal example - I probably make a good engineer in the classic sense (think Da Vinci, or a hands-on guy like Kelly Johnson at the Skunk Works).
But that's not how engineering is today. I spent many years beating myself up thinking it was me not adapting to the engineering work world.
Well - I am not that kind of engineer. I'm not a paper-pushing procedure lover. I'm something completely different.
There is nothing wrong with me but career mismatch and since I can't change myself to like it, I have to change where I'm at. The way I've decided to do that is by changing my habits, for a start.
That works - habit change. That is easy. But yeah - changing your spots? Not possible for any leopard.
What?
No magical quotes to tell me how to run my life?
No lists of things to do to improve my happiness?
No inspirational stories of Little Timmy who fell down the well and then went on to win the gold medal in the Special Olympics?
Nooooo! Say it ain't so!
Just HOW am I supposed to deal with life, NOW?
- Friar
Francis,
The funniest thing about this post (which I LOVE) is that it made me think of the last self-help books I ever read.
A series of books about food addiction. Eating for reasons other than being hungry. There were three or four books in the series and they rocked and after reading a zillion self-help books those became the last ones I ever read, because she said: You are okay. You need to accept yourself. Once you stop trying to change, you'll stop using food as medicine instead of nourishment. NO, REALLY. STOP IT. Allow yourself to BE.
Hey, she's talking to all sorts of folks with lots worse issues than I had, so it took her several angles and several books to get that "No, really" across. But it was true. After I really got that point, I stopped trying to fix me, accepted all the flaws, and boom, her saying don't try to cure yourself, cured me.
Of trying to cure myself. We are caught up in I'm-not-good-enough syndrome in this modern world. "You are okay" was something I knew in my brainy brain, but refused to accept in my heart of hearts.
You got that across so well here, and you didn't take several books to do it. Kudos.
Regards,
Kelly
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