I’ve spent way too much time treating my own personality like a buggy piece of software. You know the drill: “If I can just fix my social anxiety, or stop being so scattered, or finally learn how to be normal, then I’ll be happy.”
I recently stumbled on this piece from The Free Press and it felt like someone finally said it out loud.
“Today, every personality trait is seen as a problem to be solved. Anything too human—every habit, every eccentricity, every feeling that’s too strong—has to be labeled and explained.”
— The Free Press
It’s wild, right? We’ve traded actual personalities for a list of symptoms. We’re so busy labeling our quirks as “disorders” that we forget they’re just… us.
Then I found this video.
Lindsey hits on something crucial here: the exhaustion doesn’t come from your life, it comes from the constant pressure of working on yourself and still not feeling “finished.” It’s a treadmill that never stops.
And for anyone who’s ever felt like they’re just “too much” or “too weird” for people to handle, this one from Real Love really landed.
“Most of us spend our whole lives trying to be like everybody else. But we can’t… If we’re different, we’re different… we need to embrace and even develop our differences.”
— Real Love
The truth is, the “weird” parts are usually the only parts of us that are actually real. The rest is just a mask we wear so we don’t make other people uncomfortable.
If you’re tired of treating yourself like a project, you might like my thoughts on why your life isn’t a broken toaster.
Maybe the goal isn’t to “solve” who you are. Maybe the goal is just to finally stop fighting the person in the mirror.