Dear Matthew:

You are welcome, and thank you for your expressed appreciation.

“money and success.. would help me feel independent socially, because I wouldn’t be afraid of saying no or standing up for myself to people who don’t treat me right, as I would feel that I don’t need anything from them”-

– first, if and when you have enough money and success, people will treat you well, won’t they? Because they will be needing something from you.

– second, if you are afraid now to say no and stand up for yourself, you will not get to the situation where you have enough money and success, so to no longer be afraid.

-third, there are examples of people who did achieve international fame and financial success and yet, they didn’t stop being afraid. Early life fear does not go away because life circumstances change.

Right now, you are trapped in something like the following distorted thinking: I am too afraid to stand up for myself, so I will achieve money and professional success without standing up for myself. When I am professionally and financially successful and people respect me as a result, I will not be afraid to stand up to their.. respect.

“I’ve always tried to impress people in order to be accepted (without any results)”- time to change the strategy.

“I don’t know how to see the world the way it really is.. people who were clearly less qualified, willing or caring got to advance while I stayed in the same place, watching them, unnoticed”- humans are animals. Animals such as humans, in nature, are about the survival of the fittest, and fitness in nature is physical strength. In human modern society, the rules didn’t change that much, only the concept of strength is not limited to the physical. Money, fame, political power.. this is Strength, so people like Stephen Hawking, the astrophysicist, was strong while having zero physical strength. But to get to his professional and financial success he used strength of some kind. In other words, strength breeds strength; you don’t get strong by remaining weak.

“Jumping over cracks.. trying again and again until I make it, these all sound great, they really do, but I still don’t understand what they imply practically”-

Here is a practical implication for you, relevant to the present time and circumstance: call that friend you mentioned who moved back to her parents because she was lonely, and tell her that you are interested in taking  her out on a date (or having a pandemic appropriate iso-date): tell her in a confident voice that you are interested in getting to know her better.

Unlike in the past (“she didn’t see my invitations as dates because I didn’t behave that way with her”), make sure that this time you do behave that way with her, and that she sees your invitation as a date.

Unlike in the past when you “tried to make the conversations about her”, make the next conversation about you.

What do you think?

anita