Taking it personally

For a while, I swung between two extremes of ownership – indifference and passionately personal. Neither led to great results. And finding the balance between the two has been a tight-rope walk; one that I have not mastered yet.

After giving it a lot of thought, I think I know why. Indifference was easy. When I achieved something to a satisfactory outcome to my expectation, I stopped caring about what happened to it thereafter. Or when I put in a lot of effort into something and got great results, but nobody gave me credit, or said “Wow! What a great job!”, I stopped caring.

Instances where I got passionately personal was a little difficult to analyse. Why would I fail at getting great results at something which I had made every waking thought (even dreams occasionally), which I put every ounce of effort I could muster? I was doing the right things, in the right way. But when I put in an effort of 100, and those around would only put in about 20, sometimes not even doing the right things, I didn’t try to raise them up. It was easier to tell myself that I had messed up and put myself down.

I’ve been told on multiple occasions, in both a professional and a personal capacity that I take things too personally. Why is that?

The answer (I think), is maybe I don’t value my own opinion enough. Why wasn’t a pat on the back from myself good enough when I started tending towards indifference? Why didn’t I detach from the situation, get a better perspective, and moved on?

Once I got to this conclusion, I realised that I don’t value my own opinion or word on an everyday basis. I don’t express anger - I clam myself up and continue about my day. I don’t express sadness – I put on a brave face, attempting to hide what I’m feeling and fail miserably at it. I don’t express preference – I go with the choice of the majority or references. I don’t have a preference in interiors, or clothes – I go with what I have been conditioned to like.

I definitely need to reassess life a little bit and give a lot more importance to what I want to do. Funnily enough, this exercise is going to quite a double guessing game. Am I choosing what I ‘should’, or am I choosing me?

Half year resolution maybe?