About Me!

Discussing myself is something that takes much thought in who I really am instead of who I perceive everyone else may want me to be.  I am happy with who I am and what I have learned about myself in life.  When I was young it wasn't proper to think of oneself in the terms of being happy or proud of my accomplishments or talents.  Other kids would consider that type of belief in oneself as being conceited or stuck on self.  It's a shame that our society allows this to continue generation after generation to the point where most people become dicontented with themselves and whom they really are.  I fell into the trap of playing the roles that everyone else in my life persuaded me to be.  My father wanted me to always strive to be the best at everything I did and yet the other kids in school were threatened by this over-zealous attitude of mine to always be the best.  One can sure lose friends fast seeking to be better than everyone else, but in reality I never wanted to be the best, I have always wanted to be just me. 

I was and have always been deep down inside the type of person that wanted to see those less fortunate or with less abilities to have a chance to experience the feeling of being better or having more.  Through the years I masked much of my desires or inner feelings to please everyone else; yet when I came to a situation where I felt someone was pushing me rebellion overtook me and I would not give or would give when I should have taken.  I felt for so many years that I had to dance for those that I wanted to please or for those that I needed to please.  I would say one thing and mean another or mean one thing and say another, and the feeling of being defeated or belittled was awful.  There were times in my youth when I would boil inside and feel this overwhelming urge to fight for what I felt should or shouldn't be done.  I look back on my life and now understand the conflict that I lived with all the time because I was not being true to whom I really was or what I really felt deep inside. This unsure sense of trying to please everypne and trying to figure out who to please first created an inconsistant behavior out of me.  My heart would fight against my mind and my mind against my body in so many instances that some days I wasn't sure what I wanted or needed and to make things tougher I had to fight against my own father for becoming whom I wanted to be and not what he felt I should be.  This conflict was a major part of the indecisiveness that I lived with most of my life.

I realized when I was in my mid-thirties that I had been through two marriages and a handful of jobs.  I needed to find the real me and it was difficult, but I decided to write a book.  I was seeing a peer-counselor to help sort out any issues I may have encountered that were being blocked.  I thought that I was a co-dependent, but learned that this term was just a label that was used to give an identity to people that were dependent on something or someone.  I have always been much of a loner and I am very happy being alone to sort out my problems or my anger, yet so many people in my life could not allow me this alone time.  My father always needed the attention that took so much energy and time to satisfy his need to feel important or respected and I realized that I had fallen into that sort of neediness as well.  When we seek the nature of who we are we tend to look at ourselves through the eyes of those we want to impress or gain approval from.  I finally had discovered why I was not able to work through anything in my life when I saw that I would never get anywhere waiting for an approval, dancing to impress, or giving to others for their benefit or need.

I alienated myself for a few years from family, friends, and people I knew well.  I began to associate with people I didn't know well, I kept acquaintances that I only dealt with for business, short-time pleasure, and necessity of daily survival. I would not give in to the demands of people in my life that were out to get something from me or through me.  I kept everything short and sweet, but everynight when I would sit alone at my computer I would write about different circumstances from my former years and I would evaluate the outcomes or the responses that channeled from those situations.  I learned that I too had become a control freak always needing the energy or time of someone or something else to satisfy my need for acceptance.  I set out everyday to change this behavior and to learn how to exist without pulling energy or time from anyone else as well as not giving any energy or time to anyone else.  I found my life to be much more simple and easier to manage.

Living without anyone in my life was not completely the answer as we all know that no one is able to survive without interaction with others, so as soon as I felt that I could handle sitting back and not seeking the center of attention or calling attention to myself from others, I began to let old friends back into my life.  One by one it took some adjustments to relearn how to react or not react to situations, but I found that my company became a little easier to deal with, whoever they were.  The final test was learning to be around my father for any length of time.  This took the most time in years to figure out and still has it's challenges for me on occassion, but it has gotten easier and we do not end up in those areas of fighting for attention or respect anymore.  I have learned to be honest and to not give people what I think they want to hear, and I have learned to be tactful when it comes to being honest and straight-forward about my opinions.

Many people in life have a strong desire to control the opinions of others, and my family is the cream of the crop for this behavior; however here it is over ten years later of dealing with this issue in my life and I have begun to see that this is something that most people struggle with and many of them don't realize that they do it.  We all want to believe inside of our beings that we are one step better, or one notch higher than everyone else, but there is no one better or less than anyone else in this world.  I learned that we all have to accept the views and ideas of others as a part of who they are and not judge it against our own perceptions or thoughts.  There is no right answer to a belief as that is something that is bred into all of us from our families, and communities.  The worse thing anyone can do, and I have done this in my life, is to think so highly of themselves and so lowly of another that nothing is right except their own perception of viewing an idea or action.

I could go on and on with examples of this type of insecure behavior because I have lived it, and I see it in so many people; however the bottom-line is I learned to love people despite their beliefs or views, and I learned to accept that it does not degrade my view just because somebody else doesn't perceive it. Discovering that attitudes and prejudices often come from what others believe, or hold as right or wrong, has opened my eyes to new ideas and thought processes that have placed me in a more accepting and humbling characteristic. Focusing on making my inside love for others align with my outer actions towards others was strange at first, but it only took a couple times of treating others the way I would love to be treated before it took it's natural course of feeling good to be kind.  My life began to not feel so chaotic and now I feel more alive in my skin than I think I have ever felt in my life.

I love to talk and conversing with someone all night over a pot of coffee or a few drinks is my most favorite thing to do.  I can hold a conversation with just about anyone, and I love to hear the stories of other people's lives and how they have worked through their trials and dilemnas in life.  Learning from one another is an esstential part in life to find other ideas and strategies that help us along our paths of making good and bad choices.  I have many fond memories of conversations with so many friends through the years and if it wasn't for my true friends that have helped me to see where my thoughts were leading me, I may not have been able to find me.  My friends have been a voice to me, reminding me to find those philosophies that will help me through my journey of life to become a better person.  Integrity is very important, and challenging myself to be honest and respectful to others is the first part of making a better me. It's not always easy to be completely honest, but in the end it's worth it's weight in being called a friend.

I love to socialize, dance, and be apart of a party of fun-loving people; however I love my alone time too.  Being able to write and express my passions without distractions is very important to me.  When I am working I prefer to be left to my duties so that I can complete what needs to be finished, knowing that when I am finished with a project, it was started with compassion and care for it's purpose; worked through with passion and skill for it's quality; and completed with certainty and confidence for its presentation.  Anyone reading my philosophies can probabaly tell that I am a very passionate person about all that I do.  This passion is what compels me to be all that I can be and do all that I can do without feeling like I have to be the best at anything but being me.