C-Dawg gave me a call on Saturday to talk about something or other and she was on her way to a dinner with her boyfriend and his parents after having driven a couple of hours (both ways) for a big family birthday party earlier in the day.
For me, one of those things would have been more than enough. I would not have made both plans for the same day as I would have been tired out by the drive and family gathering and wouldn't have wanted another "event" to go to the same day.
Heck, I might not have even wanted another one that same weekend.
Rather than beat myself up for not being as good as C-Dawg for doing both these things, the thought hit me that we were just different.
I'm sure someone with a PhD beside their name could analyze the why's of our personalities and it would probably end up saying something about an introvert vs an extrovert or something along those lines, but the fact that I cringed at the idea of her having the two big events on one day doesn't mean that she did. And it doesn't mean that I'm wrong for not wanting to do the same.
It just means I'm different.
And that I need to stop comparing myself to other people because they have different minds and mind sets and personalities.
My friends, family and co-workers aren't me. Perhaps there are some that are a bit similar to me, but most of them are not and that just makes them different. Not better or worse. Just different.
My Saturday involved getting a bunch of errands (that I've been putting off) done and then spending the rest of the day mellowing on the couch.
The end.
3 comments:
Comparing yourself to others reminds me of this quote I saw on another blog....
like a being whose constant mantra is "never enough/never enough/never enough" —the buddhist
I came across an interesting article somewhere online a while ago talking about how people's outlook varied depending on their 'default' level of some neurotransmitter or other.
The theory went along the lines of: One of the brain's important chemicals is stimulated by social interaction. People who have naturally high levels of that chemical do fine whilst on their own, but in social situations get literally "overloaded" as levels of whatever it was (could have been dopamine?) became too high. Whereas, people with a naturally low level of it tend to be unhappy when alone, and only get up to "normal" functional levels when socialising.
Result, some people literally can't function without being in a social group, and some people can't function within one.
Obviously, it's a broad spectrum. But it was an interesting hypothesis for why some people have a higher need/tolerance for socialising than others.
Ugh, I know that mantra HD... trying to un-learn it :)
Brilliant Dominic, I'd love to read that if you ever randomly come across it again!
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