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gungadin09 -> do you recognise yourself as a child? (6/30/2010 9:01:38 PM)
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Looking back on my childhood self, i can see things in the adult "me" that come from that little girl, and i can also see aspects of my personality which are totally different. My life has been a journey, and has taken me through several different "versions" of myself. For a long time i felt like i was getting farther and farther from the person i started out as. Recently, i feel like i have come full circle, and i find myself "re-discovering" personality traits that i thought i had lost since childhood.
Let me give an example:
When i was young, i was really emotional. i hated watching t.v. because i found it too "violent". i became overstimulated by the content. i would find myself empathising with the characters too much, taking it too much too heart. "OH MY GOD! GARGAMEL IS GOING TO EAT THE SMURFS!!! WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO??????" i got all worked up. i couldn't bear to watch. I similar feeling while playing sports: i hated winning more than losing, because when i won, i "felt sorry" for the loser. No, not "sorry". Devastated. if i got a bad grade on a test, i would cry, literally cry, in class. i was shy. i didn't like speaking up in class. i never argued or asserted myself.
Later on in life, particularly during college, and afterwards, working in restaurants, i found out that i have a hard, competitive side after all. i learned how to drive people, make them do what i wanted. i gained confidence and was sure of myself. i learned how to take hard knocks, and give them out too. In a restaurant kitchen, especially, you have to be really blunt and aggressive. Learning that was very hard for me. At first i couldn't do it. i was too afraid to say what i really meant for fear of hurting someone's feelings. i just couldn't push people around. But, eventually, i learned to do it. i had to. Otherwise, i would have kept getting bulldozed over. Eventually this "coping mechanism" that i learned for work became a part of my personality. i didn't have to "try" to be assertive anymore. It came naturally. Then, sometimes, i was too assertive.
i thought i had changed for good. But as i get older, i feel the old me coming back, the gentler version. i have more patience with people. i am compassionate. i'm more sensitive, more willing to make allowances for people instead adhering to hard rules. i feel like i am returning to my childhood personality, only this time it's balanced out with wisdom and a bit of the aggression and confidence i learned. i don't know if the change is good or bad. i'm more balanced now, but sometimes i miss the "edge" i had when i was 25; that kind of hard, uncompromising idealism and the willingness to throw myself wholeheartedly into everything i did, pursuing every goal with religious fervor. But, then, when i was like that, i remember missing sensitivity and compassion. i honestly don't know which "version" of my different personalities is the best.
Does anyone else feel like this? Would you recognise the adult you are now in the child you were? Would you say that you're basically the same person you were as a child (allowing for maturity, wisdom, "growing up"), or has your personality changed significantly since then? Could you have predicted where you would end up in your life, your career, your marriage?
pam
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