I am fairly known in my limited social interactions to self-depreciate myself often. I have to. It stems not only from what I would describe as a hard-knock life since middle school, but also because I have never felt physically or emotionally confident in myself. I know a lot of people will say “Well you’re just talking shit, you didn’t have life nearly as hard as X” or pull a Tumblr-style “You’re a straight-white-male, check your PORRIDGE.” I get that. I get that compared to whosit-whatsit, I am not the only guy with problems. I’ll proceed to break out my razorblades and Linkin Park now.

But earlier today I read a few inspirational messages, the sort you usually read from people more successful than you. I don’t fault them for such, they obviously put themselves in a better frame of mine and made it happen. I grabbed a tub of ice cream and watched Star Trek all day.

Recognize we are all flawed and hypocritical. We all want to become better versions of ourselves.

I don’t think I’ve ever once felt I was special, or the best, or that anyone else around me was pure shit. Even in teams, and especially with the people I work with, I tend not to excel above everyone. I do a good job, and specialize in some skills others don’t, but I don’t like being the center of attention or taking away from other people’s efforts. It’s a bit odd to explain, but it’s effectively like me wanting another person to get the award and the praise than myself.

Thing is, I know I am deeply flawed. I have decades of psychological issues I still battle off and on today. People would tell me “Why bother? Forget about it. It’s in the past! It doesn’t matter!” and it would really be nothing more than deflection and distraction, wrapped in a neat bow of appealing to my emotions. I’ve always considered seeking professional help, to try to get past this and be better, but I don’t really know how, and I don’t know if I want to assault a stranger with those demons.

We will slip and stumble. That does not make us bad people, it makes us flawed people – which is to say, human.

I’ve fallen a lot in life. Part of the reason I deeply regret the past thirteen years is that I’ve only really accomplished what I’ve wanted in the past six years. I wasted a lot of time and energy on things I shouldn’t have, because I didn’t get a chance to waste my time with those things in high school. I used up a lot of valuable time in my twenties living life in the fast lane. I imagine a lot of people would wonder why that is a problem? In many ways, it isn’t, but in a lot of ways, it is. I never properly finished college, and I could have stuck my foot in the door with an entry-level tech job a lot sooner and been in a much better position now. I could have had kids sooner. A lot of people told me “Wait!” and I feel most of them did so because they regret not doing it themselves, or some other reason. My problem is I don’t take enough risks. And I should.

You do you, whoever that “you” is.

I’ve always done me. Hell, this is the one thing I know I’ve done right. I’ve never pretended to be anyone I am not. But I believe that is the reason I feel isolated, alone, and without a lot of people around me. I reach out to people online because I don’t have many people in-person that I feel comfortable with hanging around. I feel most people don’t want to bother. People see my political and socio-political charged bullshit online, they see ideas and opinions they don’t agree with, and they think I am not right. I don’t expect people I know to agree with me on everything, but I don’t expect people I know to talk those topics with me. Talking about nice things, family, friends, or whatever, those are great and I’ll do that all day. People use the phrase “heart on their sleeve” a lot to talk about people who express themselves more forward than most. Even for being an introvert and rather emotionally-closed, I still wear much of my heart on my sleeve. I can’t shake the core of who I am, someone who wants very much to be an extrovert, but it’s just not that simple for me, and even more difficult to make people understand.

If you cannot begin to adopt a mindset of love for yourself, how can you expect others to love you?

For the most part, I love myself. I know I am fat, out of shape, unable to do a lot of traditionally male things, but I always assume that eventually I can change. It is difficult. I’ve tried exercise and eating better in the past, but I get lazy, the day goes to hell and I get home late to make anything, same with my wife, life doesn’t seem to really help us out when it comes to that sort of thing. And with this whole debacle in having a child going on, it’s taxing and tolling on both of us physically and mentally. I don’t even want to tell other people because many of them don’t understand, or they do, but are always quick to point out how they don’t have those problems. It’s a very human response to immediately reinforce one’s ego, and that makes conversation difficult.

Given all of this, and the ever-looming anxiety I have over mortality and the specter of death, there are times where it is hard for me to process a lot of things. I try to take each day one at a time, and keep myself occupied with things to get through the day. But it’s hard looking back and not really seeing anything significant being accomplished, and wondering how you can go forward doing better. All I know is when I look at myself in a mirror, sometimes it is just difficult to see anything through the fog.