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How can I change?

Lost Ego

Lost Ego

Bluelighter
Joined
Jun 11, 2009
Messages
1,453
Location
Californiaaa
I feel like my life is going to a waste. It's like life is a blank canvas and while i want to be painting my canvas i'm so distracted by other art forms, other people's art, envying theirs, wishing i could possibly attain such a beautiful piece of art. I probably only get one canvas and so far it's essentially blank. I have all of this potential and i'm using absolutely none of it outside the realm of philosophy. All of my dreams that I told myself were a lie and i'm slowly beginning to realize that given my current situation and my current mental state that I can't have anything that I once wanted.

I want to go out, i want to live, i want to experience, i want to accomplish, i want to feel, i want to know, i want to see and hear. I set goals for myself, for instance - i want to love more or i want to find a partner and i'll go out and actively try to attain these things but it isn't a month before i lose motivation and go back to being distracted by my old compulsions and addictions and forget all about my goals. I have finally found that i love everybody and everything on earth but the sad part is nobody loves me back and it's so disappointing. It's so disappointing that I can't for the life of me be the person that I want to be. Maybe it just needs time, over the last year or 2 i was always wishing that I could be a man and all of a sudden I realized that I already was the man that I always wanted to be, perhaps I've always been who i wanted to be and i was just too afraid to be that person. Fear consumes me...

I don't think it works the same with love, relationships and careers. You can't just be the person that someone else will love or like, you can't just suddenly be a person who is successful. I know what you're going to say, that i shouldn't need other people or things to validate my existence. I know this, but without other people in my life I feel so empty... I confessed my honest feelings to 10 different girls over the last month in hopes that they wouldn't reject me but nope they just ignored my letters, my phone calls, my texts, my pleas. I try to be myself around new people and often they are attracted to me and then I keep being myself and then they quickly get driven away by my crazyness. Who am i supposed to be if nobody likes my self, who i am. I am that I am and I cannot change that. I was hoping that if i focused on being exactly who i was that i'd attract those that are like me. Social contracts say not to be so honest, not to let everybody in, but i say fuck them. Perhaps i'm just designed to live the rest of my life in solitude, perhaps it's my purpose (if such a preposterous thing should exist), perhaps my purpose is to discover a truth of the universe and write a book on it, but i doubt that i actually have a purpose other than to survive. Do i need to change in some way? What way? Can a person really change? Is changing as a person a good thing or a bad thing?

P.S. Throughout my childhood and teenage years i was so focused on being someone else, someone who i thought was cool, funny, likeable and that image kind of stuck but it's not me so i'm trying to focus on being me now. The biggest problem is i've half forgotten/lost who i was. The forgetting part is from all of the years of pretending and the lost part is from all of the drugs. ZZzz I'm sick of this life, i should go out and buy a new one (sarcasm).

Also this thread is sort of a reality check for me, I dont necessarily need someone to give me advice on this subject, it's more or less just my way of organizing and prioritizing my goals and desires.

Edit: I suppose i just realized that I have commitment issues, i have trouble committing to any decision, big or small. (ex: pizza or chicken, ask her out or stay friends). I can't just commit to one thing, it just seems to risky i suppose. I know alot of people but i have problems deciding whether to make them my acquaintance or friend. I guess I'm unique in that I don't do anything via extension of my heart, rather i weigh the pros and cons until i come to a decision - usually that never happens and i decide to not decide lol.
 
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i feel the same way OP. It just takes time. There is so many things that i want to do, things that i know i can do. But i hold myself back for some reason.
 
drugs change you sometimes... drugs made me different its so hard to feel or act like other people.. I hate it I hate drugs and what they did... do your best is all I can say?

Pick one thing at a time to change or pick one thing to do different, or you want to do. Like you want to meet people go out... one thing at a time or you want to read a book do it.. dunno lame example... just go one step at a time...

Luck plays a huge part also you get lucky and things might roll your way

Sober can help
 
I can relate. I want someone special in my life too. I keep being me in the hope that I will attract someone who "gets me". My thought was if they don't like the way I dress, my hair, my lifestyle, my vocabulary, etc, they are not somebody I need to know. Its not working for me. But I realize its not those things that are unattractive to others, its where my head is at that turns people away. If I am not willing to make an effort, why would others make an effort to get to know me.

Have you considered setting more realistic and measureable goals? instead of "I want to find a partner" try something like "I will talk to 1 new person a week" or "I will order the first thing on the menu that sounds good and stop looking at the menu"
 
Use2Be said:
My thought was if they don't like the way I dress, my hair, my lifestyle, my vocabulary, etc, they are not somebody I need to know. Its not working for me. But I realize its not those things that are unattractive to others, its where my head is at that turns people away. If I am not willing to make an effort, why would others make an effort to get to know me.

Have you considered setting more realistic and measureable goals? instead of "I want to find a partner" try something like "I will talk to 1 new person a week" or "I will order the first thing on the menu that sounds good and stop looking at the menu"
Click to expand...

This is sorta what i'm trying to get down to. I can change my hair, my vocab and my lifestyle without jeopardizing who i am but is it okay to change who i actually am in order to achieve what i want in life? I'm talking about personality traits - i'm stubborn, i'm shy, i'm lazy, i'm a bit too intelligent for my own good. Are these things "okay" to hide or change? Is it "okay" to change other things about me that stem from fear (ex: commitment issues)?

This thread shouldn't be named How Can I Change?, it should be Should I Change? or Is it Ethical To Change Who I Am?
 
Changing bad habits is certainly ethical and something that will make you happier with yourself regardless how other people are affected (stubborn, lazy, etc.) Changing who you are naturally (introverted, extroverted, cynical, spacey, etc) is different and I would say that you should make adaptations to your basic nature only if it is a problem for you. I know we live in a world that values extroverts over introverts but that is a false paradigm. We probably would not have a fraction of the knowledge we have if it were not for the quiet observers amongst us. Both cynics and dreamers bring something to the table of equal worth. The trick to self-acceptance is self-knowledge--you can't accept yourself if you still don't understand yourself.

One thing that stood out to me in your first post was when you said you had tried to tell 10 girls in one month how you felt about them. It sounds like maybe you are putting the cart before the horse. If your need to be with someone (anyone) is greater than your feelings for a particular individual girl then that is going to come across. I liked Used2Be's suggestion of starting small.

Our culture is a star-worshipping mess. We all feel like we have to excel at everything we do and even if we manage to pull that off we still just look at what we aren't doing! What ever happened to a simple life lived honorably? If you look at the ripple effect from being one relatively happy, self-sufficient person in this human soup, it is pretty phenomenal. There are so many forces combining to make each one of us feel inferior to an impossible ever-changing ideal. Remember that when you think about how you want to paint your canvas. No matter what you do, when you do it with heart and integrity, it is beautiful. Learning how to have integrity and heart is a lifelong process.
 
I would suggest not hiding your personality traits because its not fair to the other person if you revert to your true self after your in a relationship. Alternately, you will probably not be happy if you have to pretend to be something you're not for a long time, something you mentioned doing when you were a teen.

Only you can decide if it's "okay" for you to change your personality. As Herbavore said, if your not satisfied with being shy, stubborn, lazy, commitment-phobic, etc then I encourage you to do so, though I'm not sure how one would go about doing that.

You were not specific about your compulsions and addictions that distract you from your goals, but if they are contributing to your unhappiness you should consider getting help quitting.

If you don't want to change, then I have no suggestions to improve your chances of reaching your goals except to say have patience and keep putting yourself out there.
 
a trick I use is set low goals... sounds lame but if your goats are simple and easy to accomplish when you get better then what you set for your self you can feel good about even small victorys whatever that may mean to you
 
^my goats are pretty simple. They give me delicious milk too :)

Dont change your key traits my friend. I lost myself "out there" and im still finding myself. It takes time. Why do you feel you need to set these goals? Especially so high? I agree with setting realistic and MEASURABLE goals. And when you reach the milestone, set the bar a bit higher. As they say, the marathon starts with that first step. Dont try to move mountains over night, move a few stones and some dirt and eventualy you moved that fucker and youll feel great. :)
 
the other thing is you cant change who you are.. what will happen is you will create a false front. You will act a certain way in soical situations but once people get to know you they will find out the way you really are. You will get comffy with them and your real traits will come out then they won't like you because you were not truthfull about who you really are..

If your a ass, your a ass. Plenty of people like asses but if you act nice then in a month you start talking shit people are going to leave you.. get my meaning? be real about who you are there are people out there who will like you anyways... be real!
 
herbavore said:
Changing bad habits is certainly ethical and something that will make you happier with yourself regardless how other people are affected (stubborn, lazy, etc.) Changing who you are naturally (introverted, extroverted, cynical, spacey, etc) is different and I would say that you should make adaptations to your basic nature only if it is a problem for you. I know we live in a world that values extroverts over introverts but that is a false paradigm. We probably would not have a fraction of the knowledge we have if it were not for the quiet observers amongst us. Both cynics and dreamers bring something to the table of equal worth. The trick to self-acceptance is self-knowledge--you can't accept yourself if you still don't understand yourself.

One thing that stood out to me in your first post was when you said you had tried to tell 10 girls in one month how you felt about them. It sounds like maybe you are putting the cart before the horse. If your need to be with someone (anyone) is greater than your feelings for a particular individual girl then that is going to come across. I liked Used2Be's suggestion of starting small.

Our culture is a star-worshipping mess. We all feel like we have to excel at everything we do and even if we manage to pull that off we still just look at what we aren't doing! What ever happened to a simple life lived honorably? If you look at the ripple effect from being one relatively happy, self-sufficient person in this human soup, it is pretty phenomenal. There are so many forces combining to make each one of us feel inferior to an impossible ever-changing ideal. Remember that when you think about how you want to paint your canvas. No matter what you do, when you do it with heart and integrity, it is beautiful. Learning how to have integrity and heart is a lifelong process.
Click to expand...

You say it is ethical to change one's self but it is healthy for your psyche, for your ego? I was sorta hoping for a psychologist's point of view on that question. How far can we alter our ego without it being bad for us?

You implied something about telling 10 women how i feel as a bad thing (carraige b4 horse or something like that). Is it really bad? I'd repressed these feelings for them and had finally decided to let go. I figured if i was holding onto these feelings, then there was no way for my to find feelings for somebody else. I was also looking to see what i already had with these women. (do they want anything to do with me or not?). Granted, I may have pushed them away by being so aggressive with how i felt but that's okay. I think it's what was healthy for my psyche.
 
The most important thing you can do is be yourself and love yourself. Its very difficult for other people to love you if haven't convinced yourself that you're worth something. Being stubborn, shy, intelligent, and lazy are more common than you may thing. If you truly want to change yourself you have to want it for yourself not for someone else. A friend told me this and its literally changed my life. He said "Do everything you do for yourself and for no one else". Now he didn't mean I should go around being a selfish dick and not caring about anyone else. A quick example would be when I go to the gym now and I work out I'm doing it for me. Will it help me attract women because I have a more desirable body? Sure will, but I'm not doing it FOR them. I'm doing it because I love the change it gives me, the sense of self worth, and the feeling I get after putting in hard work. Thats what makes the change easy for me. You should want to paint a canvas that is beautiful to you, not one you think someone else might find beautiful. As for the 10 women who didn't answer you back? I wouldn't worry about them. We've all been rejected more than we'd like to admit. With women the opportunity to make a move is generally limited especially at a younger age. Chasing someone who isn't interested in you in the first place will never end in your favor.
 
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