Paralyzed into Mediocrity

[icwiz]

Yeah, I need to forgive. I am filled with a lot of anger at the world. And i do think that i hold myself back in a form of punishment to my parents. I need to forgive and then take a nice vacation where its warm and tropical, with lots of beautiful single women. Any ideas?

--ICWiz

[icwiz]

Nowadays even though im fairly successful, i have no real deep confidence. What little confidence i do show is faked, just the means to be able to fit in. I feel that even though i have alot to offer, its nothing that anyone wants. This really pains me as ive been single for a long long time. Im not a weird guy. In fact nowadays i can get along with girls just fine. In my adulthood, im attractive. But deep down, im terrified. Ive never asked a girl out, never approached one.

At least hold that feeling that you know that your "attractive" it will help with talking to the ladies at first. You'll just have to learn how to remove your social "two left shoes" so to speak. Remeber to be yourself and talk about things that interest you, just as much as you ask questions about them, tell them about yourself.

You'll get it!

Thanks for the advice My issue is fear in general. Im paralyzed by it. Basically if i feel that they will not appreciate me or what im saying, i wont do anything. And since i have issues with confidence, thats more often then not. If im not afraid i have no social issues at all. In fact when im being myself and being without fear, most people i know say im very interesting and fun to hang out with.

Its just fear. I dont know what to do about it. I dont like the idea of pushing through it because i dont see the other side.

[CFTraveler]

Sounds like you need to learn to tell the difference between love and approval. There are some love gurus out there that haven't learned the difference yet.

[icwiz]

Sounds like you need to learn to tell the difference between love and approval. There are some love gurus out there that haven't learned the difference yet.

Perhaps lol. how would you word the difference?

[CFTraveler]

Love is unconditional- I can love you but not necessarily approve of something you do.
For example, if my son flunks a test because he was lazy and didn't feel like studying, you bet that I am going to be all over his case about it. Now, I love him more than life, and would die for him in a minute. In less than a minute. But that doesn't mean I have to approve of everything he does.
It seems to me, and I see this more in the anglo-saxon world (this may be due to language) that many people can't separate behavior/action from the person- if you do something that's not exactly good for you (or for someone else) people tell you that you're 'bad', 'unruly', etc. - That is, the action seems to be considered the person. But in reality the action is the problem- if you do something bad for you, it's not that you're bad, it's that you did something unwise, etc. (and who doesn't, from time to time?) The behavior can be due to many things- lack of information, bad information, 'having had a bad day'- but the behavior can be changed- you will always be you. You see?
Unfortunately (and once again, I think it's a language thing, and language sometimes shapes culture) it becomes part of the paradigm, and when a young child does something wrong, like biting, etc- unacceptable behavior that can get them in trouble- they're told (sometimes even by teachers, who should have enough training to know better) that 'they're bad', instead of telling them 'biting is bad' (I use the word bad because it's simple, and young children understand simple.)
The problem with telling a young child that they're 'bad', (or stupid, or some other epithet) is that they'll start to believe it, and it's really hard later, when they're old enough- to break the programming.
Does this sound like it's what happened to you?