FA+
Shop
Why I choose to be a Puppy.
12 years ago
BEHOLD!
Hmm. Now this is a bit of a long one. I don't honestly expect anyone to read this, but I felt suddenly compelled to type it out and post it.
When I was 8 years old, I realized that others thought of me as overly simplistic and childlike, naive even. Often times I could be this way but often times I saw things as they were (even at that age) but choose to look at things positively and faced each day with some level of excitement and anticipation despite it all. However, all of my most significant role-models growing up from the people in real life I admired (like my grandfather) to the fictional characters I liked in movies or in television (like dirty hairy. ...Yes. At age 8. xD) had a vastly different outlook. They were calm and collected, and interestingly very distant from those around them. They never needed help from anyone. Their emotions never got in the way. They were very slow to trust... If ever they did.
At 8 years old, under the pressure of older “peers” who found me annoying at the time (imagine that, an annoying 8 year old) I made a conscious decision to fundamentally change who I was as a person. I decided to go from who I was to the kind of person I wanted to be.
People who say that you can't change who you are, and that people can never change are absolutely wrong. You absolutely can change who you are. It's just that most people don't. I was always very stubborn and strong willed. I still remember when I made the decision. It was the night before my youth group was supposed to drive to camp. We were all herded into the home of one of the drivers and I was the youngest in the group. I remember realizing how much I had talked and feeling very silly for playing the role of the obnoxious child. I decided then and there to change that.
Sure. It wasn't easy. I failed plenty of times... Opened my mouth and said stupid things. Was hyper and energetic when I, “shouldn't have been.”
I think the key to changing yourself is through repetition, mindset, and exposure. What you expose yourself to... What you dwell on... The kinds of things you spend your time thinking about. These are all things that are under your control. In the short term they are near meaningless. But over very, very long periods of time, the things you choose to focus on and spend your idle time thinking about start to define character traits. It bleeds through.
It's kind of like how some people will listen to music to get themselves stirred up and ready to do something big and important. It gets their mind into the right framework. Or, it can like how people who are exposed to the morbid on a regular basis start to become comfortable with things other people wouldn't be... Like how a mortician can calmly laugh and joke in conversations about death and the prospect of an afterlife where most people nervously push the subject out of their mind and move on to more cheery subjects.
I focused on the serious things I knew about. I made a conscious effort not to talk unless it was important. ...And by the time I was 11 years old? I had my mother terrified because I went into one of the darker times in my life... It lasted until I was 15. I soaked up every bit of information on politics, world events, conspiracy theories, survivalism, and war I could get my paws on. I read books on wilderness and urban survival... I had the manuals memorized. I joined a cadet program of a paramilitary group that allowed me to get search and rescue trained, trained to use military radio frequencies, and even mass casualty triage by the time I was 16.
For all intents and purposes? I had succeeded in every possible way in achieving my goal that I set when I was 8. I was now serious at all times. I was paranoid, and alert. ...To a fault. Obsessive. The kinds of clothes I wore, while practical, brought on completely untrue accusations like, “Skin head,” and scared people away before they ever had a chance to know me. ...And even if they did get to know me there wasn't much there anymore that people would have liked to touch or go anywhere near.
People can absolutely change who they are. ...And speaking from experience? It's not always for the better. I carelessly threw away the amazing gift that is childhood. While many others have this time in their life ripped away from them, I simply chose to trample it.
It took 5 years to realize how miserable I’d become in the process. I'd become everything I had wanted to be. At my most friendly, I was that guy that got dragged to the party against his will, and say in the corner sipping from a mug of steaming black coffee staring at people and watching them interact. It even came in handy a couple times (I was home alone when someone broke into my house... I walked into a break in at my best friend's house... I was assaulted at camp by a very violent older kid who was trying to establish dominance.... Etc.) Which made it very nice to have the serious mentality I had... But otherwise? I hadn't had a stable friendship in years. The relationships I did have were like poison... They were unstable. And when they fell apart as they always did, they serves as proof in my mind that people were neither to be liked or trusted. Finally it dawned on me that I didn't like my life as it was. ...And I realized it was my own doing and foolishness that had brought me there.
If you want to change something about your personality, or change something about who you are, start by changing what you spend your time focusing on long term. The things that you dwell on for hours on end... The things you keep in your mind's sights... That's where you're going to go. At that moment when I was 16, I chose to be the kind of person who helps and cares about people, and who would never make some else feel like a lesser human being for making mistakes, or for what they don't know. I decided that I needed to learn to be humble, peaceful, accepting, non-judgmental, thankful, and... Well. Happy. :)
Just like when I was a child.
And that's where I've decided to keep my mind ever sense. To spend hours and hours role-playing as my fursona... To curl up in bed at night in adorable footie pajamas... To draw the adorable characters from folks around here... To be apart of a community like this where those traits are not only encouraged but fostered? That's priceless. Countless times it's melted my heart just when I needed it to. Countless times I’ve noticed the hours spent doing these things beginning to bleed into my everyday personality... And the shock on people's faces at times when the toddler would show through the cold persona I had built up for myself.
I'm 21 now. Am I where I want to be yet? Oh, hell no! xD I go against those traits far too often. But i'm a very different person than I was at the age of 16... I'm still moving in the “right” direction, and I am content.
When I was 8 years old, I realized that others thought of me as overly simplistic and childlike, naive even. Often times I could be this way but often times I saw things as they were (even at that age) but choose to look at things positively and faced each day with some level of excitement and anticipation despite it all. However, all of my most significant role-models growing up from the people in real life I admired (like my grandfather) to the fictional characters I liked in movies or in television (like dirty hairy. ...Yes. At age 8. xD) had a vastly different outlook. They were calm and collected, and interestingly very distant from those around them. They never needed help from anyone. Their emotions never got in the way. They were very slow to trust... If ever they did.
At 8 years old, under the pressure of older “peers” who found me annoying at the time (imagine that, an annoying 8 year old) I made a conscious decision to fundamentally change who I was as a person. I decided to go from who I was to the kind of person I wanted to be.
People who say that you can't change who you are, and that people can never change are absolutely wrong. You absolutely can change who you are. It's just that most people don't. I was always very stubborn and strong willed. I still remember when I made the decision. It was the night before my youth group was supposed to drive to camp. We were all herded into the home of one of the drivers and I was the youngest in the group. I remember realizing how much I had talked and feeling very silly for playing the role of the obnoxious child. I decided then and there to change that.
Sure. It wasn't easy. I failed plenty of times... Opened my mouth and said stupid things. Was hyper and energetic when I, “shouldn't have been.”
I think the key to changing yourself is through repetition, mindset, and exposure. What you expose yourself to... What you dwell on... The kinds of things you spend your time thinking about. These are all things that are under your control. In the short term they are near meaningless. But over very, very long periods of time, the things you choose to focus on and spend your idle time thinking about start to define character traits. It bleeds through.
It's kind of like how some people will listen to music to get themselves stirred up and ready to do something big and important. It gets their mind into the right framework. Or, it can like how people who are exposed to the morbid on a regular basis start to become comfortable with things other people wouldn't be... Like how a mortician can calmly laugh and joke in conversations about death and the prospect of an afterlife where most people nervously push the subject out of their mind and move on to more cheery subjects.
I focused on the serious things I knew about. I made a conscious effort not to talk unless it was important. ...And by the time I was 11 years old? I had my mother terrified because I went into one of the darker times in my life... It lasted until I was 15. I soaked up every bit of information on politics, world events, conspiracy theories, survivalism, and war I could get my paws on. I read books on wilderness and urban survival... I had the manuals memorized. I joined a cadet program of a paramilitary group that allowed me to get search and rescue trained, trained to use military radio frequencies, and even mass casualty triage by the time I was 16.
For all intents and purposes? I had succeeded in every possible way in achieving my goal that I set when I was 8. I was now serious at all times. I was paranoid, and alert. ...To a fault. Obsessive. The kinds of clothes I wore, while practical, brought on completely untrue accusations like, “Skin head,” and scared people away before they ever had a chance to know me. ...And even if they did get to know me there wasn't much there anymore that people would have liked to touch or go anywhere near.
People can absolutely change who they are. ...And speaking from experience? It's not always for the better. I carelessly threw away the amazing gift that is childhood. While many others have this time in their life ripped away from them, I simply chose to trample it.
It took 5 years to realize how miserable I’d become in the process. I'd become everything I had wanted to be. At my most friendly, I was that guy that got dragged to the party against his will, and say in the corner sipping from a mug of steaming black coffee staring at people and watching them interact. It even came in handy a couple times (I was home alone when someone broke into my house... I walked into a break in at my best friend's house... I was assaulted at camp by a very violent older kid who was trying to establish dominance.... Etc.) Which made it very nice to have the serious mentality I had... But otherwise? I hadn't had a stable friendship in years. The relationships I did have were like poison... They were unstable. And when they fell apart as they always did, they serves as proof in my mind that people were neither to be liked or trusted. Finally it dawned on me that I didn't like my life as it was. ...And I realized it was my own doing and foolishness that had brought me there.
If you want to change something about your personality, or change something about who you are, start by changing what you spend your time focusing on long term. The things that you dwell on for hours on end... The things you keep in your mind's sights... That's where you're going to go. At that moment when I was 16, I chose to be the kind of person who helps and cares about people, and who would never make some else feel like a lesser human being for making mistakes, or for what they don't know. I decided that I needed to learn to be humble, peaceful, accepting, non-judgmental, thankful, and... Well. Happy. :)
Just like when I was a child.
And that's where I've decided to keep my mind ever sense. To spend hours and hours role-playing as my fursona... To curl up in bed at night in adorable footie pajamas... To draw the adorable characters from folks around here... To be apart of a community like this where those traits are not only encouraged but fostered? That's priceless. Countless times it's melted my heart just when I needed it to. Countless times I’ve noticed the hours spent doing these things beginning to bleed into my everyday personality... And the shock on people's faces at times when the toddler would show through the cold persona I had built up for myself.
I'm 21 now. Am I where I want to be yet? Oh, hell no! xD I go against those traits far too often. But i'm a very different person than I was at the age of 16... I'm still moving in the “right” direction, and I am content.
You are absolutely correct in that it's how and what we CHOOSE to focus on that shapes our outlook on things though. It's a choice, and so is how we react to things.
Thank you for sharing this. :)