What Would You Do?
“Would you do, anything I wanna do
I want to believe in you, oh baby
Would you go, anywhere I wanna go
Around the world and back home, oh baby”
Things are changing for me. I’m trying to figure everything out. Am I doing the right things? Am I believing in the right things?
What would I do for love? What would I do to find that happiness?
It’s simple… damn near anything (as long as it didn’t maliciously hurt anyone)
I’ve been thinking a lot about my self-image and confidence lately. People at work feel like I’m such a confident person that when they see me outside of work they are kind of confused. I’m comfortable at work. It took me a while to get to that point, but I’m there. I’m tenured and established myself as a hard worker, as a good worker. Since I started to have that confidence I started to branch out and interact more, talk with people more, be confident in my success.
Outside of work it’s a mess. My self-confidence is terrible. I have mindset that no one could be interested in me. I know I’m no movie star, but I also know that I’m a decent looking guy, maybe even slightly above average if I’m feeling confident haha. I’m well rounded, responsible, caring, loving, open minded and very dependable. I know what my strengths are. I know my weaknesses. I know that I do a lot of things well and that in all reality I’m a pretty good catch… yet I can’t get that to translate into confidence. I’m convinced that even with all of that… no one will care. I’m nothing special, I’m boring. Now I’m not depressed about this. These thoughts don’t make me sad. I’m at a happy point in my life. But I wonder where my confidence has gone. I was never crazy cocky or egotistical, I know I had my cocky moments though (but it never had to do with getting a girls attention). But I did used to be confident. I used to believe who I was was something special. For so long now, when a girl shows interest (assuming I’m understanding it correctly) I immediately start to deny it. I think that girl? She’s great! What could she possibly see in me? It’s even started to happen with her. She loved me for so long, but now I don’t even have the confidence to convince myself there’s anything appealing about me.
I really want to work this out. I’m in this rut that I need to get out of. Maybe just maybe there are people out there that can see the good in me and like me for that. But I guess before that can happen, I have to believe it too. I have to believe I’m worth something and I have to believe that someone really could be interested in me again.
What would I do to believe in myself again?
What would I do to believe I was something special?
I’m not sure, but I’m figuring it out.
The Gears of My Mind 
September 23, 2011 at 1:15 pm
Soul searching. It’s sheer bliss. You’ll find the answers you are looking for. I could pretend that I have all the answers or give you some cheesy cliche answer, but I know you’ll find that answer you are looking for. I can tell you that being in the work environment for me, I came to realize just how you felt. Started out as a low… very low intern. Had to work my way up and it was hard. I was shy and trying so hard to be the best worker that I could be. Some days I would gain enough confidence to speak up in conferences, and other days it just totally sucked and I kept thinking to myself why am I so scared to just be confident and share my ideas with my coworkers.
That being all said, now I’ll launch into what I just didn’t promise you I would do, lol, but in some ways it’s my own story. After a time I just sayed to the heck with what people think, and started sharing my ideas. I pushed forward and ended up interviewing people, writing articles, and loving every moment of those conferences. I was so happy one day when my boss turned to me and thanked me for everything I was doing, then made me assistant editor. I just about broke down and cried, but dignified spared everyone the sappy stuff.
My main point to all of that is that at work I found that it was hard to build network and social status there, but once it came my confidence grew until I became more of the me I was discovering. At work it was easy for me to feel confident, but as I soon later discovered that wasn’t who I was.
After a long day of work and coming home all that left me. I still felt the same. Self worth was down. Shy, stumbling over my words in front of the opposite sex, hitting myself for wondering why I could have said such a ridiculous thing, and hating myself for knowing that I was better than that. Wondered if I would ever find that special someone that would see all past that, and wondered if I would ever see past that uncomfortableness that I called my own skin. Than I began to realize over time that things that had happened in my past had affected my confidence.
Before all that I had falling in love with someone, and waited for a long time to tell them that (my first mistake), and they just led me on to think that it was going to work out somehow. In the end I was crushed, and it took my self worth away. I thought to myself how special could I possibly be, just like you were talking about but different experience of course.
Lately, it’s happened again, and I’ve started doing some soul searching. Asking myself all the time now who am i and what kind of great characteristics do I like about myself? I’ve come to discover that God made me beautiful, that my self worth is in him. Some of my friends are christian, and some of them are not, so the ones who aren’t would beg to differ. But for me it makes all the difference in the world to know that through everything I just said there is a hope greater than me, and someone who loves me unconditionally despite everything that I’ve said that’s terrible, everything that has been broken in my life, and how messed up I am in some ways.
Perhaps you won’t agree with me on that, but I respect that. It’s just my own story of soul searching before, lately, and now. Love how real you are in your writing. You are right, it’s wonderful to know that other people like you, but the most important thing is knowing just how special you are to yourself and that there is no one else like you.
You’ll find what you are looking for. I believe in you.
September 23, 2011 at 1:40 pm
—Shorty
September 23, 2011 at 3:42 pm
Well I shouldn’t say that it took my self confidence and worth away, but it definitely left me shaken up.