[MBTI General] do you ever feel like you're "lagging" behind?

[antireconciler]

Yeah, and I'd like some advice about this ... because what do you do about it when it's not just that take a long time to find what you want, but that you still don't know what you want? It kind of sits there and smolders in the back of my mind.

I want to do something which I am passionate about and which is a service to others, but I ... don't know what to do. I don't know how to be useful, and there's a sense in which everyone can just start with themselves, doing what they enjoy and making themselves happy by sharing their own sense of culture instead of keeping it locked up inside as though it weren't good enough to share ... because truly, if you want to be unhappy, keeping your own sense of beauty locked up is the quickest way ... but if no one has any use for your own sense of beauty, is it still beautiful?

It's kind of a dilemma. I mean, whatever you find beautiful, you have to be realistic enough to mold it and shape it so that others can receive it. I mean, you can never forget about your audience and instead insist on some kind of purity that takes you away from ever being able to present it to others in a practical way. Is this making any sense at all? You can't just close up and insist on the purity of your own culture like China did a thousand years ago, to which it then DID lag behind despite itself and only recently catches up. But just as little can you be happy only doing what you think is most helpful, such as those who go and pursue fields were they can make a lot of money, indicating society values them, but where is the passion?

I've pursued things I was passionate about to find it only took me away from people ... toward people, yes, but ... now I just sound like I'm complaining of no one understanding which is ... disgusting.

Reminds me of ...

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP-ugoF-www"]Toonami promotional: Dreams[/YOUTUBE]

But it's okay. I can start over. Because when you shed all defenses and are willing to start anew with your own naked, vital core, I know--I know this--that you find you have a lot more to begin with than you thought. He who was stripped of name and pride has, in a moment, surpassed all self-consuming doubt, as though inverting the world, diving beneath the surface where above there are only comparisons of who grows tallest and holds the most beautiful crowning flower, to the roots below, where there is community, and there is life. The world grows out of this surface, estranging itself from itself in endless division, but there is always something beyond the external and alien, like the space between things which relate them and draw them under again.

Whatever you do, it's okay. It only has to make you happy. Don't say it's not good enough, or that you are a fool for wasting your time on what you enjoy or love. It only has to make you smile or sing a little. Trust only in that. Don't wonder if it is good enough for others. Take them all, and stand them up against the wall. Take from them, as through tearing off their name tag, all the things they would say about your insufficiency. Place upon them a new tag saying "I want only that you be happy". Place this upon every one of them, and make those tags stick in your mind like the truth. Say, "this is the true state of things". And now dismiss them. Go about what it was that brought you a smile and NOW KNOW WITH CONFIDENCE, that you fulfilling the dreams of everyone you know for NOTHING MORE than the mere smile on your face, the song in your heart, the color you have given all the world around you.

I've been listening to this song recently because it makes me smile

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV-HPOHu8mY"]Jimmy Eat World - The Middle[/YOUTUBE]

Yes and yes to those. I usually feel like I'm very behind the times. In some ways, it means I'm actually "ahead" in some other aspect, but that aspect is never one that is conducive to relating to my peers.
...
Anyway, compared to my peers, I'm emotionally and socially very behind. I've been on a date once. Only been kissed once. I've had online relationships that failed because neither side could get their act together to visit the other. I'm not anywhere near to most of these other people who date all the time and seem to have no trouble finding guys they like their age.

Some ways it's just nice to be unique and we don't HAVE to spend a lot of time being caught up with the times. I really admire it when people just turn away from all that because they feel like they are doing something more important and they don't apologize for not being caught up because it is a deliberate choice they make. They own it.

I feel very socially behind too though because I find I separate myself from what others do or say. I don't see something I'm capable of in what they do or say, so it just appears kind of alien, and I get a kind of slight "how did you do that?" feeling, as though whatever that person said expressed a kind of fluency in speaking or relating which, instead of responding to naturally like I should, I get stuck in awe of that person's social feats, like they are on a level beyond me. I do it just all the time.

I mean, sure that kind of logic makes sense playing a video game, but I hardly think it's appropriate to apply it to real, individual people.

Respect from others never matters one iota until you withhold it from yourself.

 

[intuitiveadrenalinejunkie]

does a bear shit in the woods?

 

[PuddleRiver]

Yeah, by the time I'm finally into something...the world has already moved on. I'm always lagging behind. I take the things I like and adopt them, the things I don't...whatever. I go my own way. It'd be nice now and then if someone else was going the same way that I'm going.

 

[Phantonym]

Yeah, by the time I'm finally into something...the world has already moved on.

I feel the same way It seems that I always want to control how things will go and I spend ridiculously long time just observing and analyzing and thinking and calculating the possible scenarios and simply...not doing anything. By the time I'm ready to enter the scene and participate...the party is over and the lights are turned off.


I have this recurring scenario in my mind of running after a train with one hand holding on to the train and I'm just not able to put my foot on board, so I keep running.

 

[tibby]

I'm slow. I'm always the last person to hear about things because I don't actively engage in them. It's like living in a different timezone - sometimes frozen, othertimes going faster you can keep up with - but never with the actual time the world is revolving. And sometimes you miss certain things and notice later, and sometimes you just don't need to go through something in order to have an understanding or experience of it, you get there already and don't see the point in the activity itself. And sometimes when you do engage, it takes you forever to gain the data to start the processing.

At certain things, lagging behind.. Yeah, definately.. And at certain like feeling like you're running a marathon and your shoes are wearing out from the bottom, and you're hoping they'll last until you've made it to the finish line. And you're there already, waiting and waiting and waiting for someone else to make it too, making the same journey, just taking longer to get there.

 

[Laurie]

Yes.

 

[Serendipity]

Yeah, and I'd like some advice about this ... because what do you do about it when it's not just that take a long time to find what you want, but that you still don't know what you want? It kind of sits there and smolders in the back of my mind.

I want to do something which I am passionate about and which is a service to others, but I ... don't know what to do. I don't know how to be useful, and there's a sense in which everyone can just start with themselves, doing what they enjoy and making themselves happy by sharing their own sense of culture instead of keeping it locked up inside as though it weren't good enough to share ... because truly, if you want to be unhappy, keeping your own sense of beauty locked up is the quickest way ... but if no one has any use for your own sense of beauty, is it still beautiful?

It's kind of a dilemma. I mean, whatever you find beautiful, you have to be realistic enough to mold it and shape it so that others can receive it. I mean, you can never forget about your audience and instead insist on some kind of purity that takes you away from ever being able to present it to others in a practical way. Is this making any sense at all? You can't just close up and insist on the purity of your own culture like China did a thousand years ago, to which it then DID lag behind despite itself and only recently catches up. But just as little can you be happy only doing what you think is most helpful, such as those who go and pursue fields were they can make a lot of money, indicating society values them, but where is the passion?

I've pursued things I was passionate about to find it only took me away from people ... toward people, yes, but ... now I just sound like I'm complaining of no one understanding which is ... disgusting.

Reminds me of ...

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP-ugoF-www"]Toonami promotional: Dreams[/YOUTUBE]

But it's okay. I can start over. Because when you shed all defenses and are willing to start anew with your own naked, vital core, I know--I know this--that you find you have a lot more to begin with than you thought. He who was stripped of name and pride has, in a moment, surpassed all self-consuming doubt, as though inverting the world, diving beneath the surface where above there are only comparisons of who grows tallest and holds the most beautiful crowning flower, to the roots below, where there is community, and there is life. The world grows out of this surface, estranging itself from itself in endless division, but there is always something beyond the external and alien, like the space between things which relate them and draw them under again.

Whatever you do, it's okay. It only has to make you happy. Don't say it's not good enough, or that you are a fool for wasting your time on what you enjoy or love. It only has to make you smile or sing a little. Trust only in that. Don't wonder if it is good enough for others. Take them all, and stand them up against the wall. Take from them, as through tearing off their name tag, all the things they would say about your insufficiency. Place upon them a new tag saying "I want only that you be happy". Place this upon every one of them, and make those tags stick in your mind like the truth. Say, "this is the true state of things". And now dismiss them. Go about what it was that brought you a smile and NOW KNOW WITH CONFIDENCE, that you fulfilling the dreams of everyone you know for NOTHING MORE than the mere smile on your face, the song in your heart, the color you have given all the world around you.

I've been listening to this song recently because it makes me smile

[YOUTUBE="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FV-HPOHu8mY"]Jimmy Eat World - The Middle[/YOUTUBE]



Some ways it's just nice to be unique and we don't HAVE to spend a lot of time being caught up with the times. I really admire it when people just turn away from all that because they feel like they are doing something more important and they don't apologize for not being caught up because it is a deliberate choice they make. They own it.

I feel very socially behind too though because I find I separate myself from what others do or say. I don't see something I'm capable of in what they do or say, so it just appears kind of alien, and I get a kind of slight "how did you do that?" feeling, as though whatever that person said expressed a kind of fluency in speaking or relating which, instead of responding to naturally like I should, I get stuck in awe of that person's social feats, like they are on a level beyond me. I do it just all the time.





Respect from others never matters one iota until you withhold it from yourself.

+1

But I always stray from that. Everytime. -.-''

 

[Ouroboros]

I used to feel this way a lot, but now I hang out with babies and feel superior in my ability to do things like walk and talk and program microwaves.

I don't feel like I'm lagging behind when it comes to things like drinking, unless this is a race to see who can get cirrhosis first. I am lagging in life experience, but I also have totally different priorities from most people. Different wants, different needs. One person's idea of lagging is another person's idea of the final stretch, and so on. When I'm feeling particularly pathetic, I do think other people have a certain ease about the way they live their lives. I haven't lived their lives, so I know that those sorts of thoughts are just temporary bouts of self-pity.

Worrying about where I am in relation to other people isn't important anymore. Instead, I spend my time worrying about where I am in relation to where I want to be. Which actually makes me feel further behind than when I compare myself to other people.

I'm still getting a hang of this "life" stuff.

 

[Phantonym]

I'm still getting a hang of this "life" stuff.

Hear, hear. Aren't we all?