It’s funny, for most of my life I could care very little whether I gained acceptance from anyone other than myself. What people think has very little bearing on my confidence or self-esteem. It didn’t matter whether it was a complete stranger or someone I loved, people’s perceptions of me had only nominal value.
I’ve come to learn that this is not necessarily a normal personality trait. It leads to many people being awkward around me and give me the impression of being aloof, conceited, or self-centered. In a sense that may be right. From a very early age I decided that the only person who really mattered when defining my self-worth was me.
If I tried to live my life to please others I would be chasing a goal that was unobtainable and I would never be successful. Instead I spent my time trying to define who I was and feeling comfortable with myself. On paper that sounds like a good idea but in practice it can lead to some unexpected results.
My relationship with my extended family is not exactly perfect. My brothers feel uncomfortable around me and they struggle trying to find a way to relax. My parents have long ago determined that lecturing me about how I should be more social would be fruitless. I don’t go out of my way to make people feel at ease.
During the time I have been on this diet I have seen subtle changes in my philosophy. Before I would simply blow off any conversation about what people thought or what I thought about someone’s physical changes.
I had never commented when someone looked like they had gained weight so why would I comment if they looked like they had lost weight. It was a personal thing to them and that’s how I thought it should be.
Now though I find myself reassessing myself to evaluate progress in my own life. Am I losing weight? Is the weight loss starting to show? I still don’t really care whether others notice but I am now starting to assess each week as successful or failed.
There have been times I have had to chuckle. In a sense it reminds me of an old Saturday Night Live skit where Stuart Smalley played by Al Franken. Stuart was a nurturer who was a master of the 12-step programs but not a licensed therapist.
He would host a guest and help them to feel better about themselves by having them repeat daily affirmations to build self-esteem. If I ever get to the point where I start to repeat, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it people like me” I am going to stop this diet. In the meantime I will chalk this up to yet another interesting aspect of weight loss that I had not expected.
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