I've been thinking a lot about my place in the world. What to I want to do with my life? Will my choice be sufficient to my acquisition of independence? I've been combing for the answer to these questions for years and the lack of a concrete path forward has had a huge toll on my mental health. It seems every day I question what I was put on this world for, if anything at all.
I see others around me:
With the way my brain works, at this moment in time, I am unable to move beyond step 1. I make plenty of goals and I have plenty of aspirations. Actually completing these goals is another matter. I've been unsure of the barriers that keep me from sticking with my goals and I want to use this blog post as a "journal" of sorts to track my current understanding of how I want to move forward with this dilemma. It will also act as an introduction to my suspected autistic features and a brief backstory on my history considering this is a brand new blog. In fact, I'm writing this post before even programming this site due to a sudden flow of ideas.
Some boring stuff real quick, before I get into the meat and potatoes.
Since being a small child (around kindergarten), I've been innately aware of my "oddness." Particularly due to the new social environment of primary school and the social implications that come with it. I was an only child for the first 10 years of my life. I did not have much social interaction with other children around my age. The only exception being my cousin whom I saw often, but did not give me a clear understanding of how other young children behave due to his own "oddness." Being outcasted by my peers very early on made it very easy for my child mind to understand how divergent I was from others. The main takeaway I got from these early interactions was that I am "weird."
Later on in my school social life I started actually making friends, primarily due to being accepted to a small magnet program at another nearby elementary school. The reason this shift helped me make friends was simply a more accepting culture of students. At least more accepting of neurodivergency. I suspect this increased acceptance may have come from the average income of a family at my new school being less than my previous school. Who knows? maybe learning to survive with limited resources trains people to make friends with people they normally wouldn't. In any case, I got to see and examine my own behavior more clearly due to simply having more interactions. I became more aware of my own hyperactivity and so did my parents. Beyond that I didn't realize much more, at least at the time; however, the information gathered in this time in my life proved invaluable to my current understanding of who I am today.
Looking beyond primary school, I found my dad (an A+ person BTW) to be extremely supportive, but extremely "pushy." He was consistent in giving excellent advice and being a great dad, but he always expected me to be extremely gifted in intelligence and thought that I could achieve whatever I dreamed. He pushed this narrative onto me. I loved being praised so much, but I do not think it was helpful in the long run.
Alrighty, now so actual insights.
I think the narrative seed my dad planted has lead to me having unrealistic expectations on where I should be in life right now. Most of these expectation where contrived from what my dad told me as a child, but are ultimately created by me and my hubris. The remaining expectations where likely contrived by my excellent performance in school.
I seem to have a strong desire to supersede everyone around me. I want to rise to the top because I know I'm capable of it. Why not, if I can get an A in college calculus, I can surely be president, or work at NASA. I never even had these unreasonable ambitions for malicious intent. I always dreamed of how I could use my position to make society more enjoyable to be part of. I still consider it my interesting flavor of narcissism. I still hold these beliefs. Not consciously, but subconsciously. I know this due to anything being presented to me that's contrary to these beliefs causing an immense amount of anxiety. Consciously, I seem to have shifted to having no purpose and not having any confidence. Hell, that's why I'm writing this post. The tug of war between complete helplessness and immense amounts of confidence is absolutely exhausting.
I'm bored so I'm gonna make a bulleted list for this one
back to paragraphs...let's go!
I'm going to be patient with myself, which is very challenging for me. This plan that I'm about to propose to myself and anyone else reading this is very loose and interchangeable.
Just kidding back to lists
| Steps | Explaination |
|---|---|
| Acknowledge the impact I have on the people around me | I want to stop trying to rationalize why I do things purely based on my desire. I want to embrace the empathetic side of my I've neglected and try to show the people I love that I can respect the person they love (me). If I hurt myself I'm hurting my Fiance's Lover, my parents child, my siblings' sibling, my friends...uh...friends, etc. That holds much more weight to me than my own suffering. |
| Acknowledge the beauty of my existence | I'm very used to not existing, I didn't exist for 13 billion years. The fact that I am a conscious being with any experience is beyond my understanding as Emma. The observer (the thing watching Emma writing this post) might be able to understand more, but in a different way. Emma is no more than a thinking machine just like a computer only made with flesh rather than transistors. Maybe I should acknowledge that the observer doesn't really have any goals, just like an audience member of a stage-play doesn't have any goals or ambitions for the main character. |
| Look at where I'm at objectively | I have awesome parents that give me and my fiance independent housing, away from both our familys, I have a kick ass laptop to write this post and to program this blog that my parents got for me, and I have food on the table. Oh and also I generally have plenty of engaging activities. |
| Understand I'm only fucking 21 | That's pretty self explanatory. I just have a lot to grow as a young adult. |
Please take all this with a grain of salt. It is just my thoughts that I used my thinking machine to make. I want you to use your thinking machine before making any rash decisions on ways to integrate any of this into your life. I may make a more in depth, research based, post which will most likely be more reliable as a source of inspiration or whatever. Lastly, this post was not tied together very neatly so sorry about that.