Changing Yourself
To what extent do you try to get others to like you? Recently there have been many situations where I’m sort of conflicted. I want to get along with others, but I don’t necessarily want to change how I am. Making things more complicated, oftentimes the people who I’m attracted to have qualities I wish to have myself, and so in some ways I do want to be more like them.
I don’t think I’m a bad person, and so I think most people don’t have any issues with me, but I’m often not the person a lot of people want to be around. I frequently say that I don’t have good social skills, which is true, but while disclosing that makes me feel better, I think it makes others confused and it would be better to try something else.
A lot of the reason my social skills are bad I think comes from the fact that I don’t spend a lot of time with people. I’m an only child; I don’t have cousins or anything that I really spent a lot of time playing with; I never went to summer camp; etc. I spent a lot of time around adults and so I am more used to just a different mode of life. It’s probably far more complex than this, but at least I’m trying to move in the direction I want.
One thing that I notice gets in my way I my energy levels. I have far less energy than my peers or being around people uses up far more energy. Regardless, I’m working on finding way to increase my energy levels, from increases my sleep, waiting an hour before drinking coffee in the morning to allow my cortisol levels to hit their max, adhering to a morning ritual, keeping track of food and water consumption, and shifting my work so I do more creative tasks in the morning and systematic tasks in the evening which works better for me being a morning person, thus decreasing stress which helps with energy levels.