I’m not sure to be completely honest. The idea was sparked by a couple of things. My blog post actually came out a bit different than what my original train of thought was. I wanted to write something short and practical about people simply liking what they like; you’re attracted to what you’re attracted to and you can’t help it. So why bother trying to change something you can’t control. But then my thoughts kind of exploded into that long blog post. Aha.

Every blog post I make relates to my life in some way. So yes, you can say I’m speaking from experience. Although the words in my post aren’t directly parallel with my person experience, but it is the lesson I took away from it. I too have low-self esteem, I suppose. Sometimes I come off as confident, sometimes I don’t. But I definitely lack confidence in myself and I’m constantly second-guessing myself. This prevents me from acting out on pure impulse, it prevents me from being myself to a certain extent. It’s almost like I’m censoring my personality because it doesn’t fit my perception of how I think that the world thinks I should behave or what I should say. Sometimes I really wish I was more like my five year-old self. I looked through old photo albums of myself—I was so happy, so alive. But I couldn’t relate myself to the person in those pictures. The spirit of who I was then was lost and buried underneath society’s expectations and the changes I underwent in order to conform to those expectations; hence, losing myself in the process.

The other aspect of the post stemmed from a conversation I had with a friend about relationships and liking a significant other. It came down to the fact that you’re either attracted to someone or you’re not. You can’t help it. Sometimes attraction can appear overtime (for women it’s easier to develop physical attraction later, for men it’s almost impossible to develop physical attraction if they’re not initially attracted to another person). People get so weighed down on the fact that the person they like doesn’t like them back. They think that changing themselves is going to somehow fix that problem. It’s a waste of time and pretending to be something you’re not is just fake. If you were put in the situation and someone else liked you but you didn’t like them, and you saw that they were trying to conform to your tastes, you probably still wouldn’t like them and you would be annoyed that they’re trying to squeeze themselves into your life. Same concept applies if the situation was flipped. If someone doesn’t like you, accept that, and move on. You have little control over it. It would be better to find someone who does like you. I don’t believe that people are as unique as we think they are. I believe that there are hundreds more people with similar personalities and it’s just a matter of moving on and finding those people instead of moping around being hooked on one person and being depressed because that single person doesn’t want anything to do with you. Yeah, I’ve been through it. I’ve gone through crushes and breakups thinking, “what’s wrong with me? Why doesn’t this person like me? Why am I not good enough?” Thinking about it now, it seems so silly to me. Compatibility should be something natural based off of true characteristics instead of forcing the compatibility through fake changes. This compatibility should apply to all relationships: intimate, friendships, family, work, etc.

A lot of people go through life thinking they are expected to conform to someone else’s ideals in order to feel accepted. You don’t need to be accepted by someone else—you need to be accepted by yourself. Because if you don’t accept yourself then you’re always going to feel unaccepted by every single person around you. Kind of like being told you’re beautiful by your friends but you don’t believe them anyway. You’re always going to fight for that acceptance. When in reality, it all start with you. Not many people realize that—I wish I had realized it sooner. But it makes it so much easier to just let things go that you have no control over, things that you can’t change. Because there WILL be people who will come into your life and accept you for you. Telling yourself, “oh no one likes me I’m going to be forever alone” is just an excuse not to move on from the fears/insecurities and people that are not important and put yourself out there in order for those people to find you. People need to stop trying to change what they can’t, they need to stop trying to be something that they can’t. A worm is never going to turn into a butterfly, and a lion is never going to prefer grass to animal flesh. If your body shape is pear-shaped, you’re never ever ever going to be an hourglass no matter how much weight you lose/gain, no matter how many hours you spend at the gym. If that guy isn’t into you, he’s not going to be into you no matter what you pretend to be. Why waste time being unhappy? Rock that pear-shape and find a great guy (with the same kind of personality as the other guy) and be happy. And that’s about as simple as I can break it down to be.