The difference between being outgoing in a job and socially

A couple of years ago, probably the summer between my junior and senior year, I was seeing a therapist about some social anxiety/depression stuff I was going through because of some stuff from the spring. At the time I had been working at Circuit City.

One day he was asking me about my job and I was telling him how I go up to people and ask them if they need help, what can I get, etc, and that I enjoyed this, and was moderately good at it, while when it came to social settings and going up to someone and talking I couldn’t do it that well. He asked what made the difference between the two and I’m pretty sure my response was “…it’s my job.” But that wasn’t really the best answer.

Looking back, I have a better answer. With me working there, it’s expected, and the situation is somewhat controlled. I’m an employee, they’re a customer presumably looking for something. This being the case I’m being paid to help them so it’s easier to go up and inquire. In a social setting the things aren’t quite as controlled, not to mention if it’s the opposite sex and there’s the ‘coming onto me’ bit.

All that being said I think that’s why I can be outgoing in a job and not socially- it’s controlled, and expected. The customer and I both know where we’re coming from and whatnot. Socially, it’s not so defined. A lack of definition, not to mention the fear of uncertainty, really bothers me for some reason. I’m still trying to delve into my personal self/memories and try to find out why that is, but to no avail as of yet.

As for why I’m up….My roommate is talking to his girlfriend on the phone. Loudly. And I have a 9:30 class. Fml. (Fuck my life).

On the up side, I enjoyed the snow days. Well more the night before the snow day. But I’ll take what I can get.

 

-Ch

Some amazing pictures I’ve stumbled upon.

As far as I’m aware, these aren’t retouched.

 

 

In another life I would’ve loved to have been a photographer. Or artist. But my drawing ability is nil. As for photography…I just never took the steps. But I could see that changing as I get older perhaps. Regardless, these pictures are awesome. If you want the link where these and many more are collected, hit me up.

I wish something would happen.

      Some sort of change in my life, I’m just not that happy with it.

      It’s kinda like those movies where the main character is stuck in whatever situation and wishing something would happen to change it, and then he bumps into a girl and they go out or something else happens and he changes his ways.
      I want that to happen to me, but life isn’t like a movie. There’s no plot.

Just life. One I’m not really a fan of right now.

 

Ironically this post is on Valentine’s Day.

Pictures I’ve be meaning to take.

This is my dad, playing his first bass in 1967.

This is one of my grandfathers medals, from one of the wars.

This is a deep game of Scrabble.

King Me

King me, please.

One of my greatest conflicts.

Is often an internal one. A social one.

My parents got divorced in ‘97, and we lived with my mom and saw my dad every other weekend. My brother is older than me and took the divorce harder, and sometimes took it out on me over the years, but since I hit 16 or so we’ve been basically cool. Before that he made fun of me alot, picked on of course, and hit me from time to time over things, not in the face, but still. I’ve never put it in that wording before and it doesn’t sound good. Aside from that I’ve always been skinny. I’m told I’m built like my mom’s father, who died before my parents divorced and I only have the faintest memory of. But naturally people call(ed) me scrawny and the like. And I had glasses. And braces for a while. I have bad self-esteem.

I’m not complaining about how hard my youth was or anything like that, it’d annoy me too much (probably because my brother would always tell me to stop complaining or crying or whatever). I’m just trying to think things out and see why I think the way I do about myself. I’ve noticed that I’m really negative towards myself, which probably has some connection to being made fun of and hit. In addition I used to have (and still do, but now below the surface, for the most part) anger problems. All of my dad’s side does, him, my brother and I. A long time ago I went to an anger management therapist who basically told me to bottle things it in, or maybe that’s just what I got out of it, so now that’s what I do, but it seems like I also bottle other emotions.

But now towards the point of the entry, how I think about myself. I’m very negative towards myself. I generally dislike pictures of myself and I don’t like my voice. I’m probably rambling, but just try to follow my train of thought. For some reason whenever I get to the part where I actually want to talk about how I think I can never phrase it. It just always seems like I’m putting myself down for no reason or giving myself a hard time. If something doesn’t go the way I’d like it to go, while talking to a girl or something for example, I say things to myself like “she doesn’t like you” or “you talked to much” or “why’d you say that. Imagine what she thinks now.” Then I get caught up in that funk and bad things happen. I try to not do it and become more aware of it but I do it anyway. When I get into an angry or just down mood I think about this even more and do it even more.

I don’t know what I thought this would accomplish. I was just trying to see if I could express my thoughts and the way I think coherently and see if I can see something I’ve missed before. I think I failed.

…And there I go again.

 

Perhaps next time I’ll talk about how I don’t understand cockiness, or undeserved confidence. I’m sure that’s related.

I’ve got the answer.

      During an episode of Scrubs Dr. Kelso said that he knew what kind of man Dr. Cox was and what he liked about doing whatever. Dr. Kelso’s thought was that Cox enjoyed being the “Go-To-Guy”, the guy that people go to when they need something, no matter how much he feigns hatred or resentment. That got me thinking of what type of person I am and I’ve come to the conclusion that I enjoy knowing the answer to things. When friends and I are working on homework or whatever, I like being the one that knows how to do it and shows them what to do. It’s not even because I like to gloat or anything like that, just some intrinsic satisfaction in knowing the way to do something or having the answer.

What that means, I’m not too sure. But it’s a start.

And I’m sad that the Cardinals look out of the SuperBowl.

The Meaning of Life

      For some reason earlier today I found myself thinking, as I often do, about seemingly unconnected (not random) and somewhat unimportant things, at least in regards to school and such at hand. I’m pretty sure I was walking on my way to Shafer, so it was either after FI class around 2, or after my physics class around 8, but I want to say it was both. While walking along the streets to Shafer I noticed how ice had frozen onto the trees so that they glistened and somewhat sparkled, it was really quite pretty, I wish I’d had my camera. After glancing at the trees and taking that in for a moment I started thinking about what the meaning of life is. In this book I’m reading, Physics of the Impossible,  one part the author talks about is man’s increased brain capacity and how that relates to our success & civilization.
      I know this is nothing new nor a revolutionary thought, but I think that we (as a species) think too much (unintended pun, proving my point?). The actual meaning of life has to apply to all living creatures, not just ones with higher thought. That being said what could be the same about us and say…a slug? The answer isn’t some piece of esoteric knowledge, it’s pretty really simple. The point of it all is to just live, reproduce, and try to survive (perhaps even achieve happiness). Our species just makes things seem much more divine and purposeful, which is our gift. I sometimes wish our time was simpler where things weren’t so complicated and one could just follow a trade, and live out a nice life in a nice house with a family. Instead today we have the mass media and thousands of other things telling us what to do.

But it’s just a thought. A thought I thought I’d share.
I actually wonder if my FI teacher stills reads our blogs. I somehow doubt it.

 

By the way, the actual answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything is actually 42.
How’s that for esoteric knowledge.

Questioning Morality.

      My Philosophy 201 class is pretty much an easy A for the semester, I hope, but it does make you think differently about things (at least in regard to morality). This last bit we had to read was by a guy named Kant, who basically believed that in order for your actions to have some moral worth you shouldn’t be concerned about the consequences or even necessarily feel good about it. He believes that people who are morally good to make themselves feel good only do it to avoid feeling bad, which isn’t very moral. In addition he believes that “good Christians” who say they believe in God and are good, etc, so they can go to Heaven also aren’t morally good. Because they’re doing something ‘good’ for a benefit or incentive that negates the ‘goodness’ of it, in a way.
       When you think about morality like that it really makes you question why you do some of the things you do and if those sparse acts of “good morality” are really infact moral if you get a little rush of goodness from it. Kant believes that there are certain duties that we have to do to be good moral people but if you’re following those duties to avoid something bad or for something good, instead of just doing them to do them, that adds nothing to your moral worth.
      While I don’t really believe in morality as defined by Kant, it is an interesting view of it. Do a lot of good people do good things so they can be good? Or do they do them to avoid something bad like self pity? It basically comes down to this- Doing something good, with either good or bad incentives, is not moral, because you should just want to do it.

Eh. I say that’s a little…picky. But to each their own.

Lack of blogism

So yeah I haven’t been blogging too much recently. There are a couple reasons but the main ones are that there hasn’t been much mind or thought provoking recently. Another is some personal stuff that’s pretty annoying and/or time consuming.

Don’t worry, I shall return. With more blogs. In the near future?