I feel like I have two faces. A serious one, which is the one I show on here, and a silly one which I show to most people and what I market, if you will, on Facebook.
I think I may have written about this before, but it's interesting how clinging to my last relationship sort of warped who I was. I felt like I was putting myself into a box that would make her happy and even long after the relationship was over, I still changed my public face to something more palatable to her tastes. Anyway, in the last month or two I feel like I have finally gone back to being the mischievous, reasonably clever jester I enjoy being.
For a while I felt like she accepted and understood this side of me, but in retrospect, I wonder if she just put up with it because the other side was worth it.
Either way, I know going forward I don't want to have to work to make my most salient characteristics fit, particularly the ones I enjoy. I also didn't realize how much the people who like me, really like me for this side of me. It seems perverse to please someone who doesn't like me for who I am at the expense of those who really enjoy what I am all about.
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In other news...
I have also seriously considered being a Unitarian Universalist minister for the past few weeks, given it basically gives me exactly the type of lifestyle I want: constant interaction, a chance to talk/discuss interesting ideas, help people from a philosophical perspective, a very flexible schedule, a chance to run an organization that can affect change in the community I live in, and very open ended subject matter. I think I would actually make a good public face, could help to run a good organization (though working with committees would be tough for me), BUT as much as I would be good at those things, I feel like I don't have the deep and painful life experiences which help you to relate to people.
In some ways I think this IS part of the reason people who like me, do like me, because I have this perpetual optimism (alternately maybe I have been through as many painful things as other people and I am just better at letting them roll off of my back). I am torn because I feel like this could be my greatest asset, but at the same time my biggest weakness as a "minister." I have sympathy but not empathy. I have so much trouble wrapping my head around why other people feel the way they do. I can certainly help them to think a different way, but the emotions that seem to overrun people I just don't really have much familiarity with. Anyway, I was thinking I might be better served, if I were to wait until I was much older and have sort of seen the gamut of human emotions, at which point I would be able to give some very pointed insights, BUT at the same time I do think I have something special to offer right now. I am not sure which would be the best course of action... I think i am going to stick with finance for the near future, but I definitely see a fork down the road.
1 comment:
good blog.
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