Bettering yourself, part 1

People are looking at you. They can see you. You exist in the world. You just have to accept it: as invisible as you’d like to be, as bothersome as you’d like to avoid being, there are limits. If you think you can adopt pseudo-invisibility, it’s just irritating: it seems passive aggressive somehow. It’s like telling people they aren’t good enough to observe you or something. I don’t know: a shorthand of understanding other people is: putting yourself in their head, stretching your imagination to discover reasons they might take personal offence, applying those reasons to the situation—you’re usually not far off ahaha.

Oh sorry: was that offensive?…See how that works?

Now apply it to shy people: as sorry as they feel for themselves, you could also see them as the un-fun kind of narcissist. People care that they’re here, but not as much as they make out.

With the advent of Susain Cain’s book, introverts had a small revolution of realising they weren’t crazy and that if others made certain provisions for them, they could operate normally. Then they did an overkill thing where loads of introverts tried to teach people how to handle them and people were like “Lol not doin that” and introverts were like “Oh: well what was the point in learning all that stuff about ourselves?” And the answer I think is so they can learn to adapt more effectively to the world around them, rather than expect the world to make provisions for them.

In that spirit, let me tell you that you are here, just like the rest of us. You can’t avoid being seen, but how can you change how you’re seen? How can you better yourself?

Over the next few weeks(!) we will look at some simple actions that will rise you up the ranks quick smart. There are also caveats to this that I’ll mention at the end.

Part 1: Compliment a man: for example, would you believe it, they do make choices about their appearance, which are easily overlooked. Look at the man nearest you: do you like some of those choices? Tell him! Surprisingly few people have done this. Unless you think he is privileged enough as a result of the patriarchy, in which case, let him forever question whether or not that tie goes with his shoes.

New tip tomorrow :)