From The Outside Looking In

Most people that have met me have said I’m a decent guy and very well liked. That I’m friendly, fun to be around and a generally well-mannered person. I get praised for being a responsible member of society, which I give a lot of that credit to how I was raised. And to all of that, I can agree. What people see, is what they get. A nice guy that will be there when I say I will, likes to have fun and enjoys the company of others.

But as all of us can be our own worst critic, I tend to focus a lot on what I see inside. I’ve posted before about my nerves and how much I worry. And that’s where what is on the inside is where I take my self-view to a different level. I’ve recently started considering myself a tortured soul. Someone who is always looking at myself and trying to make the best of my life, only to have various flaws revealed to me that I didn’t realize I had. One of them is always needing to avoid conflicts. I like to play the arbitrator that smooths things over. I hate when people bring drama around me. It creates friction and takes away the fun and happy mood that I like to surround myself with. I mean, who doesn’t want a consistent environment that is filled with happiness and joy.

While I won’t go into the personal specifics of what happened, I had a recent experience that has brought all of this to the forefront. The last few days of my life, I have let this tortured soul take over my entire demeanor. I’m not the happy, joking person I used to be. It’s been replaced with bland responses or forced smiles when I interact with others. I’m curt with those around me, with responses that don’t normally come out of my mouth. Nothing really mean or cruel, but just a direct reply in a tone that says “I’m really not wanting to talk to anyone.”

I think what has happened is that I’ve been living with several issues in my head for so long that once this last incident happened, it was like the straw that broke the camel’s back. I’ve had enough of trying to arbitrate my surroundings to make things better. I feel I have reached a point where all of my efforts to make a bad situation better were for nothing. Just lost time in my life that I will never get back.

I’m almost positive that this has been a good deal of the reasons why I didn’t make videos for a while or did some of things that I love doing. It’s been one of the main distractions in my life that I let get in the way of me doing what I enjoy.

I don’t like being like this. It’s not the person I want to be and definitely don’t want to continue becoming. So in the ongoing struggle of humanity, I must find a way to get past all this. For me, this requires some major changes to how I view and handle situations that I used to before. Almost like re-wiring myself to start doing things differently. At the age of 47, I don’t know if I’m ready to go through some major changes in my life. But my fear is that if I don’t, I will be so self-consumed with all of this that it will permanently change who I’ve been for the majority of my adult life.

Thus, this is the state that I am currently in. A true conundrum that I am needing to deal with. I see this as another layer on top of the last layer that I was trying to work through.

I rarely open up like this, but I need to get this out of my system and place it in a place where I can not only view it myself, but hoping that publicly posting it will hold me accountable to work it all out. At least before some other layer of whatever finds it’s way to my current stack of personal issues.

Any input is welcome from anyone that reads this. I’m not really looking for suggestions on how to get better. I’ve not provided any pertinent details on what happened. Plus, this really is something I really do need to work out with myself. But if you have any antidotes or any similar feelings or stories to share, I am open to reading your thoughts.

To end this on a positive note, I will have a few blog posts that cover all of the great and awesome parts of my recent vacation to Disneyland, Newport Beach and my test drive of a Nissan LEAF. Stay tuned.

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