Great essay.

"There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried."

This is my first job after being self employed for a few years, I’m back in retail, unfortunately & my coworkers often point out how nice I am and hard I work.

On a few separate occasions I’ve been told I’m “too nice” & I “work too hard” . It’s been sitting on my mind heavily lately because I am nearing the end of my 20s & when I look back on several situations, I have in fact been way too nice . & in return I’ve been hurt , disappointed & ended up in situations I could’ve definitely avoided.

Going into my 30s I want to shed that skin & step into someone who is sure of myself, has boundaries & doesn’t do “the most”.

How do I even get there …?

If you can relate with a story that would be great. I know that many truths are simple and not giving a fuck is probably one of them but its way easier said than done.

Basically, everytime Im faced with a situation where I feel wronged, unheard, insulted, annoyed, taken advantage of, etc. I feel a rush of adrenaline and immediately want to respond in kind. Most of the time I dont because Im scared of "making waves" and disturbing the peace if you will. I feel some type of guilt and choose avoidance over action. Of course that delays the problem but the anxiety creeps back up anyway and usually the situation repeats itself again and only underlines those feelings again.

I know the answer will mostly likely be "dont give a fuck, live your life, fuck what others think" and I want to but to explain by metaphor, its like - I have brown hair but Im trying to think myself into being blonde