AskPolly: 'Every day, I think about the things I need to do in order to succeed in college and build a career, and though I try as hard as I can, I just do not care'
I desperately need some practical advice about a very impractical life problem. That problem being, I don’t care about my life. To be clear, I don’t want to stop living, and my life could probably be worse. But every day, I think about the things I need to do in order to succeed in college and build a career, and though I try as hard as I can, I just do not care.
I am not prepared for a world of constant communication, of marketing myself. And the older I get, the more I see that I’ll never escape the need to be something more palatable in order to be supported emotionally, and also in order to get hired and continue eating. I’m not trying to be a bitch. I really, truly believe in love and friendship and the power of human connection. But I also really, truly have to make people like me so I can pay my rent.
It feels terrible to talk to people because you’re trying to make them like you. The second you remove that imperative from your mind, things will improve. You say people don’t like your “natural” personality, but has anyone really experienced it? As long as you’re anxious over how much people like you, trust me, your natural personality is still hidden. The only way your real personality will show is if you connect with other people without fear.
What people dislike about you, once they become your friend, is not your natural self. What they dislike is how hard you work, and how much compensatory devotion you expect from them, prematurely, and how angry and rejected you feel when someone lets you down, and how determined you are to hide your true self, even as you demand that other people show their true selves.
Most people are ruled by shame and dread, they just aren’t aware of it. If you never really address it, shame revisits you in different forms throughout the course of your life. When I first moved to the suburbs, I went through a phase of working hard to get people to like me. It was hellish and trying harder only made people like me less. This didn’t happen because I’m just naturally unlikable.
Even though I used to think this was specific to me, these days I think it’s true for almost everyone. People know when you’re deluding yourself. They know when you’re trying to seem better than you are. They hate it. Eventually, when you’ve learned to feel and sense your way through the world, when you’ve learned to appreciate surprises and long-winded stories and unexpected sights and smells, you will naturally take up space in a very different way. You won’t rush people. You won’t expect too much of them. You won’t rush yourself. You won’t expect too much of yourself.
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