One year: A Reflection

I started writing this blog while riding the train home in May of this year.  8 months later I have picked it back up and am finishing it. At the time I thought I was going to write a month by month recap of my life.  I now realize that that would be boring, rather presumptuous, and self centered to think that people care enough about my life to read what had happened to me every month.  So i include the only month that I wrote November of last year.  From there who knows what will happen.

November

The month I finally got settled into life at HIU, and it felt like home.  I wrote my initial thoughts about it my post HIU Life.  I wrote more blog posts that month than any previous, or since. I met a girl who was interesting.  She asked me to Sadie Hawkins.  I told her no, not because of her, but because I dislike events with lots of people and am a cheapskate.  I told her we could go do something else some other time if she wanted to.  Surprisingly she took up my offer and we made plans to go see a movie, but I got the release date mixed up, so we ended up going for a walk instead.  I stayed home during Thanksgiving break to save a few bucks, but I paid for it in loneliness.  I missed my family; I had always spent Thanksgiving with them.  That girl invited me to go to her aunt’s house for Thanksgiving, I had nothing better to do, so I said yes.

Is It Just Me? Pt. 2

So I wrote the a post back in May and titled it Pt. 1 and said it was “to be continued”. I have no idea why I did. Did I really think that I would come to some conclusion later or that it needed to be part of a series? Anyway, I left it open ended, so I feel I should bring the subject to a state of closure. This is in part because I have gained some new perspective in the area of communicating with people. The other reason is I hate leaving things unfinished.

As I reread my initial post several things stood out to me. One, why was I so hung up on getting people's opinions about things? Two, why didn't I formulate a plan to try and change the results I had been getting? Three, why did I not realize that the problem I was experiencing was a direct result from my poor listening skills?

When it comes to getting people's opinions I suppose that I am just interested in what people have to say. Sadly I think that, especially at the time of writing that post, I liked asking people questions, not so much because I wanted to know what they thought but because I could use my questions as a platform to introduce what I thought in order to showcase my knowledge to other people so I would look smart. I have a lot of pride in my knowledge and I used it to try and gain people's respect and attention. This method was not a conscious effort. I really did believe that I cared about other people and their opinions, when in fact, I had subconsciously learned a way to puff myself up and show off what I knew to others in an attempt to gain their affection.

To address my second question, I do not think I believed that I could be the major or main cause of the problem. I saw people’s lack of response as their problem and blamed it on what I thought to be passivity within my generation for talking about important issues. In reality, I can now see that I was/am a major part of the problem and that it comes from being a selfish conversationalist and a sub-par listener.