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Saturday, December 18, 2004

On Trust and Similarity Around Others

So trust comes first. Interesting thing about trust, it's a decision you make yourself. Do you trust someone? You have to decide. But really, the most important thing is to trust yourself. Trust yourself to make decisions. Sure, sometimes you make mistakes. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't trust yourself. If you don't trust your own decisions, how can you really trust someone else's? After all, trusting their decision is one of your decisions.

Trust is a very fragile thing with others, but with yourself, it has to be solid, unwavering. If you stop trusting yourself, you need someone to show you you're wrong in that mistrust. Someone who knows you will usually do the trick - they can show you the decisions you made that are right, and how much those outweigh the one or two seemingly large mistakes you've made. Bottom line is, no mistake is large enough to warrant a loss of confidence. Ever.

Now, on to the next point. Those who think they act the same with everyone should think again. They're wrong. No one acts the same around strangers as they do around friends. And so it should be. Me, I have a different face for nobody, people I don't know, people I do know, and people I know well. Usually it involves various phases of indifference :).

When I say a face for 'nobody', I mean when I'm walking and not talking to anyone - the face everyone sees, whether they've ever seen me before or not. Generally that face is rather hostile. A few years ago, that was very much on purpose. In California and at Norcross, I didn't have much interest in talking to people I didn't know. Namely because it was more likely that I wouldn't like them than anything else. A couple of years ago, that changed. But that particular mannerism is one I haven't changed.

The other three are variations on friendliness and how talkative I am. If you hit on a subject I like, however, I'm going to talk way too much whether I know you or not.

Regardless, the point I'm trying to get to is that acting differently around everyone is a point one has to get through. Part of maturing? Who knows. Regardless, it's a very good way to be friendly - you speak to everyone in a way that is appropriate for them. After all, you're closer to some people than others, you know certain things about some people that you don't know about others, each person is unique - why shouldn't the way you address them also be unique?

When this leads to being different around everyone but never being yourself, however, there is a problem. It isn't a personality problem or anything of the sort. More likely it involves not having found someone you feel you can be yourself around, with all your positive and negative traits. But not having found someone you *feel* you can be yourself around and not having someone you *can* be yourself around are two different things. Someone is probably there, willing to accept you for who you are. It's just a question of looking a little bit harder. Rarely is there no one there who has enough quirks of their own to be able to accept and appreciate yours.

There are plenty of other reasons one isn't oneself around others, of course. I probably couldn't think of them all even if I tried. But most of them will be solved by an understanding person. And I'm optimistic enough to think that most people have at least one of those around them. It's just a matter of finding them.

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Okay, so the above might be slightly disjointed, I'm not sure, I'm not really going to reread it right now. I might revise and add stuff a little bit later, but for now, that's how it stands. I probably shouldn't have been listening to "Mosh" while writing, but hey, whatever :).

I would also like to point out that whoever invented the rake is my savior. For today, anyway.

** Corrected a bit of skillful English up there (read: one hell of a dumb mistake)

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