What's On Your Mind?

I have no idea where I'm going with this WHO AM I WEDNESDAY post, so I'm just going to go into the depths of my mind (which admittedly can be a very scary place) to see what's lurking in there.  I have no idea where I'm going with this, nor do I know exactly what I'm going to say.  All that I do know is that I'm really going into this entry with blinders on.

Well, here goes nothing.

September 17, 2014

So, what's been happening with me lately?  Honestly, not a whole lot.  At least not at the moment anyway.  I have lots of plans coming up towards the end of the month, and some plans made in October as well with Thanksgiving and Halloween coming up.  But right at this moment, I'm helping out with the planning of a massive sale that is set to take place at my job. 

And this massive sale is kind of a double edged sword for people.  For customers, they love it because they can get food, beauty products, electronics, toys, and seasonal stuff for extremely low prices.  For store managers and district managers, they love it because all that customer traffic will likely bring in a ton of profit for the store and the company.

Myself?  Well, I don't mind serving customers, but I do mind it when they get angry with me because we run out of a particular item in the sale.  I really don't like that at all.  In fact, I'll be perfectly honest.  I hate it.  I don't get paid nearly enough to take abuse from people who obviously have anger issues and probably should have stayed home and shopped online.  But unless there is a way that one can invent a mood-altering laser gun that transforms surly shoppers into perky purchasers, there's not much I can do about it but smile and nod.

(Though I'll be fair.  95% of all customers I deal with are awesome people.  Unfortunately, I only tend to remember the bitter, crusty, evil 5% that really shouldn't go out in public ever again.)

This being said, I have a major confession to make here.  It may very well explain why I became such an easy target for people to pick on, or make fun of.

I don't do well with confrontation.  At all.  Now, granted, when it comes to dealing with people in a workplace setting, there's very little that you can do.  After all, you make one false move and before you know it, you're given your pink slip and shown the door.  Or, in extreme cases, the boys in blue come out, slap silver handcuffs on your wrist, and you end up in a jail cell where orange truly is the new black.

But in all other aspects of life and living, I seem to be that way with practically everybody around me.  I have great difficulty standing up for myself and whenever I'm in a situation where I am confronted by someone else, I have a really hard time dealing with it.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that I don't work well with people who are angry.  Maybe it has to do with the fact that I've seen and witnessed a lot of dysfunction between people in my life.  Or, maybe it has to do with the fact that even though I'm in my thirties and should have a firm sense of who I am by now, I still find myself crumbling under pressure when people question some of the choices I've made, or when people openly ask me questions that I don't feel comfortable answering, or even if people are being complete jerks.

I don't feel like I've lost my edge.  I feel like I never had any edge to begin with.  And I'm not really exactly sure how to go about improving this.

I suppose it's like this.  My whole life has been all about making other people feel happy - and sometimes I feel as though that I'm sacrificing my own happiness to do exactly that.  Unfortunately, as someone who admittedly has a hard time adapting to extreme change (though not nearly as difficult as Sheldon Cooper from "The Big Bang Theory"), I just sort of adapted to being the meek, quiet, shy person that most people seem to see me as.

I hate being that person.  Yet, no matter what, I don't know how to change it. 

I wish I could find a way to believe in myself enough to not let the opinions and comments of other people affect me negatively.  I wish I didn't act like such a doormat around Type A personalities or extremely aggressive people.  I wish that my store sold boxes or bottles of assertiveness at this big sale that is coming up so that I could improve my confidence and not be so afraid of people.  Unfortunately, I fear that purchasing assertiveness in stores is as much of an impossible dream as those mood-altering laser guns that I spoke about a few paragraphs above.

At first, I thought that it was in relation to the social anxiety that I've struggled with most of my adult life, but I can't really say for sure that it's the root cause.  There's a slight connection, but it's more like one of those spotty WiFi connections that you'd get at a dodgy coffee shop.

(That metaphor was so lame, but again, we're going into the depths of my brain here.  I think a lot of lame things.  You were warned at the beginning of this blog entry.)

In reality, I believe that the real reason why I lack assertiveness in my life is because I hate the idea of hurting other people's feelings.  It doesn't matter whether mine got hurt in the process...so long as I made sure that everyone else was happy. 

It's a horrible way to live, might I add.  Because people who live that way always put themselves last, and people who do that basically stop enjoying the good things that life has to offer.

I know.  I've been living that way for such a long time.  And unfortunately, I've sort of gotten used to it.

I think what I really need to do is just grab life by the horns and just take off somewhere and be by myself for a little while.  Like go out and live in a log cabin for half a year, or take an extended vacation on my own terms, or basically be in charge of myself and only myself for even a little bit.

After all, like that cosmetic company says...I'm worth it. 

Now to muster up the courage.  That's the tricky part.