A Change of Attitude - Unto the Attitude of Change

I look at my life.
I think about it.
I look at others' lives.
I observe them.
I think about them.
I don't like mine.

I don't like my life. What can I say? I don't like it. I find it haughty and ridiculous to say so, because I know that my role in the world is one in which many, many people would frantically aspire to be in. But I say what I think, what I feel, the Truth. I don't like my life.

I have a new job, I live in a new city, I earn a good new salary I would've hardly had ever found back in Guatemala. I moved two months ago to Austin, TX to find a new way of life - more opportunities, new people, independence, social adventure, a change in my lifestyle. My family is alive and well, even though a long distance apart. I am healthy, I am young, I just turned 24, and my intelligence level has been considered to be quite above-average (perception which I now highly doubt). I speak two main languages fluently and partially understand another, I have a bachelor's degree in Computer Science, a specialty with high demand in today's job market, and I have many friends back in Guatemala and here in the USA, and some of them online, and with some of which I have shared my next-to-most intimate secrets, thoughts, and feelings. And I don't like my life.

How many times will I say it? I don't know. I don't like my life. I don't like my life. Why?? Why the fuck not?? Am I crazy?? Am I just stupid?? What's wrong with me???

I've had several answers come up. I could say that I need a girlfriend, and that that would make me happy. I could say that I need more money, and that that would make me happy. I could also say that I need more independence - I need my own car, my own apartment, my own social life, or that I need to learn new skills, to practice new sports - and that that would make me happy. But I've had these things achieved at several points in my life. Didn't help much, no siree.

I know I'm just blogging randomly... but that's exactly why I'm blogging: to discharge whatever thoughts are repressed inside. I just want to say it out, even if only to my blog, even if no one ever reads it, not even myself, but I need to express them in SOME way. I don't like my life.

I remember last year - I wanted a girlfriend. I wanted one so badly, I cried about it. I wrote it in my journal, pouring feelings all over it, frantic with want, telling God about it. I was somewhat surprised when a couple of weeks later, I ended up having a girlfriend. Cute, funny, smart, adventurous, passionate, I loved her so much. I loved her more than I remember ever loving anyone else. I thought I had finally found my life's purpose, and yes, fluffy clouds and rainbows were floating everywhere. Now this story is not such a good example, because our relationship was broken by her parents' decision and not by any of our wills. But immediately after this relationship ended, another one began, and in both physical and emotional sense, I enjoyed it very much. But I was never fully satisfied. I'm not sure why - I always felt somehow... undeserving. I felt desire but not love - I felt passion but not trust. I never really allowed myself to be loved. "What the hell is wrong with me?", I asked. "This beautiful, smart, interesting, passionate girl loves me, and I don't allow myself to be loved? Why???" And no answer came.

All of my thoughts want to come into my blog at once - there's too many of them, too many examples to tell, too much disorganization in my head. I will, however, say the reason why I named this blog "A Change of Attitude - Unto the Attitude of Change" in the first place.

If you get to know me a little, you'll probably know that I'm not a walking stereotype. I abhor such a concept. I despise the thought of a person limiting him/herself to a certain lifestyle and adhering to it for the rest of his living days. I, internally and automatically, pity/despise a person when someone asks him/her something about him/her, and he/she responds with something like "I'm an engineer", or "I'm a lawyer", or "I'm a football trainer", as if assuming that they can only have one role in life.

I like to be different. I like to do stuff in a different way. I like to take activities, analyze them, and twist them in small, noticeable ways so that though the result may be the same, the process is just a wee little bit different. I do this for several reasons.

I like to think that one of this reasons is to show people a lesson. I try to teach by example, saying "look, you're used to doing this by following these steps, but I just came and did it in another way, my own way, and so can you. You can change. You can always do things differently, create your own steps, ignore the cookbooks in life". What a noble reason, isn't it? The wise, benevolent individualist tells everyone how to be different, and to live their own lives in their own fucking way.

There's the other hidden reason - the one I've known for a long time now, but have been unwilling to admit. I do stuff differently because it attracts attention. I believe this was a casual side effect to my attitude of change, but it stuck like crazy glue to my personality. I found out that doing things differently meant people turning their heads only to see me, making me the focal point of attention for a while, making me even famous sometimes. I've experienced it, it's nice to be famous. Superficial glorification, temporary popularity. But I think I became addicted to it. I didn't mean to, I really didn't mean to become addicted to it. But I think I did.

And so I became a stereotype myself. Perhaps not the kind of stereotype you see in movies, like the sports jock, the punk kid, the nerd, the party guy, the righteous guy, the emo guy, the dedicated worker, or someone like that. But I did become stuck with a lifestyle. The lifestyle of "different", with the attitude of "what you do could be done better, look at me do it better, look at me". I adopted the lifestyle of the self-glorified attention-seeker, who shared his lifestyle with no one, because even he himself does not understand what abnormality he suffers from. Until a little while ago.

I'm trying to understand myself. I'm trying to understand why I don't like myself. I realized I close myself in a shell. The books that they made me read in college - "Quien se ha llevado mi queso?", "El caballero de la armadura oxidada", I now realize their truth. I realized it before, and I left the task of changing at the end of my to-do list, which I always forget in a little note in the back of my head and eventually gets thrown into the brain-dump. And now I come back to it again.

I want to change. In a weird meta-way, the always changing from the standard way and holding on to this attitude of change and weirdness made me unable to change from it. Because I now find it an almost impossible task to be normal. Now when I want to adopt certain standard patterns in my life, open myself up to the beliefs and attitudes of other people, I find myself stunted. I haven't been able to hold up a normal, decent conversation of chit-chat for any amount of time. I find it very hard to follow definite instructions. Now when I find myself in need of other people, of their company, of their ideas, their attention alone, which I am now barely able to hold on to, is definitely not enough.

And so I come to my decision. I dare myself to change. I want to change my attitude. My worn-out attitude of "change" has become rusted and impossibly heavy, so now I dare myself to remove this shell off my mind and soul, and to adopt a new attitude of change, of changing my old, worn-out, egotistically self-made stereotype, and to start new and afresh, learning to trust people again.

I know it's all very cheesy and corny, but what the heck. It's what I think. Anyone who disagrees can just suck it.

(I forgot to mention "A Change of Attitude" is the name of an mp3 by DJ Heaven, and I hope I'm not breaking any copyright laws. A Change of Attitude, that's what I need).