you non-contributing zero

When I was in middle school and early on in high school I had a very difficult time believing there were reasons for people to like me. I had nothing to offer. I was nothing unique. I was nothing important. Even at the time, I knew the thought pattern was unhealthy and I forced myself to just assume people liked me until they told me otherwise. It worked. Even if you overwhelmingly bore them, people will almost never tell you they don't like you to your face as long as you aren't a burden to them. I am quite adept at being a drama free, pleasant, if inconsequential, entity. I had many friends by the end of high school. I doubt any of them would call me inconsequential, but I'd have a hard time believing them.

Clearly, I was extremely adverse to rejection. This led to almost no risks being taken throughout school, and even in college I stuck with the comfortable for the most part. And then one day it all reversed and I started taking all sorts of risks. (I know the exact day, and yes, it involved a girl) After that, I basically did things I was afraid of just because I was afraid of them. There would be no more regrets. That type of behavior will stretch you at least.

All failure feels like rejection. It eats away at you. And in my head, it simply compounds. This probably goes back to me feeling inconsequential. At the moment, and many times before, though not always, I've got all success's bundled in a place of irrelevance. None of them count. So my life is constant failure. All actions are then predictably doomed. This gives the future a rather bleak outlook.

Something in me still goes, believing it can find that one small switch to flip that will change things dramatically. Where I get this idea that it's just one thing, I do not know. But I go, none-the-less, surviving by a glimmer of hope. I should just play the lottery, it's got better odds.

That's not the point of this. It's the return of that feeling of inconsequence from decades ago that concerns me. Do I have nothing to offer?

Why is it back? Did I not deal with it properly in the past?

It's more than that. It's that I can't make it. I can't figure it out. I can't become that person who is of consequence. Is that what kept me going? Is that what kept me risking? The idea that I will become something more, something desirable, something of value.

Now, I can go back to my childhood, my father and even my brain chemistry, and come up with reasons why I think this way. But I swear I've been there already. I've forgiven my father. We get along better all the time. And I'd thought I'd moved beyond these feelings of worthlessness.

Am I making progress or not? That's what I care most about. Too much of this year has been a repeat of very painful times long ago. No, it hasn't been as bad, not even close, but why is it here at all? What have I not learned? Is there anything that says it won't come back again?

I keep telling myself I need to be comfortable with and proud of who I am. I should embrace and boast of those things that I am ashamed of, not try to hide them and not try to be someone else. Maybe that's what confidence is. And maybe I've only learned to fake it in certain situations.

There's a balance out there that I'm missing. Because while I should be content with who I am, (up to this point) I refuse to believe I should be content with how things go. I am not at all happy with how things go. They are just so often disappointing. There's got to be a way to change that. Maybe there is not. Or maybe it's going to be subtle. Maybe I shouldn't worry about how things are, I should worry instead about how I am. I should aspire to not be disappointing in and of myself.

I, of course, have a firm grip on nothing. I'll just keep tossing around ideas, trying them, and hopefully not deeming them all failures.