The cynical optimist

I sent out this tweet only 15 days into the new year. I had grown tired of being on the outskirts of community but never allowing myself in.

I’ve always been the quiet kid. I get in my head too much.

What if I say the wrong thing?

What if I’m not interesting enough??

This has unfortunately boiled over into social media as well, I don’t interact with people because I don’t feel like I have anything the add to the discussion. I don’t want to intrude.

This year, I decided I was going to stop thinking, stop getting in my own head and make the connections in the online communities I was a part of that I so desperately wanted to make.

And I started off well,

I posted a bit more, I even started commenting on a YouTube series by Matt Wallace called “What are you Working on?” And it’s a place to hold yourself accountable for your writing projects/ whatever kind of projects you are working on.

Last year I would have never posted on it.

Lately however, I feel myself slipping back into old habits, liking things, but never engaging. Support from the shadows. I find myself lost in my own thoughts again, shadows of self-doubt clouding ever interaction I do bring myself to have. I have even been commenting less on that YouTube series.

All I know is I’m always trying to be a better version of myself and I don’t want to slide back into the version of myself that lurks in the background and let’s life fly by, someone who lets life happen to them and not an active participate in it.

This year I have identified parts of myself I want to fix and have made some progress in getting there. Which is excellent but if I don’t refresh that pledge right here right now then by years end I will have fallen right back into that comfortable little box i’ve kept myself in for years and I’m not okay with that.

So I’m making that pledge once again to myself, and to anyone who reads this, as a way to hold myself accountable. I will not stay on the outskirts of community any more. My life will be better if I allow myself to venture in. I look forward to what the rest of this year might bring.