Maybe it's just me: not made for this world

calvinTO wrote: And so I thought, well, if it is just me then I need to understand that and adjust the way I live accordingly.

If?

Broadly speaking, across hundreds of interactions, of course it is just you...or more specifically your beliefs about how the world is suppose to work or how you wish or want it to work against how it really works.

If we play poker, we all get dealt a bad hand now and again. Sometimes we can even be dealt a series of bad hands that makes it seem like we are doing something wrong. But, over hundreds if not thousands of hands, if how you believe poker works is actually how poker works, then you will get an outcome that is aligned with reality.

If? No..it isn't if. It is definitely your beliefs that you need to adjust as to live accordingly.

You believe when people make a verbal commitment or say they want to hang out or some other social activity that the way the world is suppose to work is that they are suppose to follow through. After all, that is what you believe so that is what you do. When you make a commitment you are there. Well, your belief is wrong. Sorry...that's the way it is my friend. If I want to blow you off for a better opportunity, that's the reality. And, you have no right to be offended or hurt, or sulking about it.

Don't believe me? Okay, fair enough. In certain cultures it is suppose to mean something. In other cultures, not so much. And it isn't necessarily broadly speaking. This can change based on very small groups and sub-groups.

Here is my belief on relationships. People come and go...they enter and exit my life. We have shared paths, we grow together and then we grow apart. All relationships, every single relationship I have ever had or ever will have will start and it will end. Relationships ebb and flow, they converge and diverge.

And this means if someone makes a commitment to me and then stands me up....yawn. I don't hold it against them. It tells me they are choosing to take a different path. And I then adjust. I don't ask that person back out. I don't expect to be invited to another event and if I am invited I would accept with caution. Still, nothing against them, but just the natural way relationships work.

Or do you disagree with my belief? Do you believe friendships only have the path of stronger, stronger, stronger, more commitment, more commitment, more commitment? Is every person you decide is a friend at some point now forever duty bound to you in some way?

Anyway...it isn't that you are not made for this world. You simply have beliefs that are currently wrong, i.e. beliefs that don't function very well. You have expectations about how the world should work and when it doesn't then you get hurt.

In my opinion you are on the right track. Adjust...adjust your beliefs.

The surest road to disappoint is thinking other people should do what you do. They don't. It doesn't make you or them right or wrong it's just how some people are. You set yourself up for disappointment if you cling to your belief because you think you're right.

tokeless wrote:The surest road to disappoint is thinking other people should do what you do. They don't. It doesn't make you or them right or wrong it's just how some people are. You set yourself up for disappointment if you cling to your belief because you think you're right.

Okay. But I don't think that I'm "right," by which I suppose you mean that I expect to be treated in the same way I treat others. I did admit, in my post, that I'm likely guilty too of sometimes treating other people dismissively or out of hand.

What I'm seeing is a consistent pattern of other people's behaviour in relation to me. I can't help but feel that, given all this "evidence," that it's not really them but me. Okay, yes, maybe at times it is them and their cavalier treatment of people; yet when I get treated like this repeatedly I wonder if there is something I'm doing to warrant such behaviour (eg, I'm not liked and/or not taken seriously and/or not considered a friend). So: maybe it is just me.

I want to to believe I'm a good, decent person. There were times in my life when I clearly wasn't, and I've worked hard to change that, and I know I've succeeded. But just as surely there are people I avoid for what might appear to be superficial reasons so too it may be I am that person-to-be-avoided in spades.

I want to move past this. Not because it's a kind of fatalism, but because I want to explore what's left of my life.

Cal

calvinTO wrote:I want to to believe I'm a good, decent person. There were times in my life when I clearly wasn't, and I've worked hard to change that, and I know I've succeeded. But just as surely there are people I avoid for what might appear to be superficial reasons so too it may be I am that person-to-be-avoided in spades. So: maybe it is just me.

You can be both. You can be both a good person and at the same time avoided.

I want to move past this. Not because it's a kind of fatalism, but because I want to explore what's left of my life.

You move past and explore by doing what you believe is good, rather than using other people’s approval as how you define good.

Ever hear the saying, “It is lonely at the top?” That is the adage that when people are doing something that the crowd isn’t...when you take the path less traveled, many people avoid because they don’t wish to participate in your journey. That doesn’t make your journey bad. It doesn’t make your exploration bad, just because it is a journey others typically avoid.