It's a Simple Question, Right?

My name is Trevor
I asked a girl out.

So recently I found out that I have grown as a person. I say this because I only discovered it through a very difficult action that I took.

I got a crush on a lady, and decided to do something about it.

Some of reasons that I found this terrifying.

It meant that I wanted something so much I made a deliberate effort to obtain it.
It was me doing it. Not Trev's Shirt, not a character, but me.
General fears
I hadn't done anything like that in years

For some time, I have believed that I didn’t deserve good to happen to me. There are a number of reasons (excuses) for this which I won’t get into. Funny thing is, when you don’t believe good things should happen to you, your desire goes out the window, and when that happens, it leaves an opening for apathy to blow through.

Desire is not a bad thing to have. It can help to fuel your motivations, gives you something to work toward. It can help you persevere through the icky bits that life sometimes sends your way. Apathy, however, covers your life with a thick coat of “Whatever.”

This realisation that I wanted something, was like a snow plow, shoveling large amounts of “Whatever Wads” from my vision. And the path that it left behind was an open invitation to personal growth. The next step for me was to follow that path.

This brings me to the next point. It was me doing it. I have a future post in the works about the entity of “Trev’s Shirt” so I won’t get into that now. I also have a number of different ‘characters’ that I show the world in different situations. A great example of this was at work. When I spoke to my younger customers, I have been described as an “over-enthusiastic man-child”. Around my new customers, I was polite and informative (if somewhat quirky). Around my staff, I would show “The Boss”. I was different for peers, I was different for regulars. Most of these characters had an element of me to them (the greatest lies always have a kernel of truth), but none of them were me.

This needed to be.

That was important in its own right. I needed to show myself. I needed to portray me. For a lack of better words and at the risk of repetition, I needed to be Trevor.  So I did.

The trouble was, I was afraid of what would happen. Being an empathetic person (INFP for anyone who knows about Myers-Briggs), a lot of my fears were based around what I was doing to this lady (I also had the usual fears that these decisions and actions bring).

Most people I know don’t want to intentionally harm another person in anyway. Doubly so for anyone that I willingly spend my time with. By asking out this lady, I was potentially forcing her to cause pain in another person. She may have to reject me. We are afraid of rejection, and by we I mean people. A truly compassionate person would understand that when they say no, they are rejecting. It cannot be easy.

This was perhaps my greatest fear of all. That I would cause her pain by the simple fact that she may need to cause me pain. The humour of this horrible, roundabout way of this thinking was that no response would actually cause me pain. If she said yes, then sweet. If she said no, then I’m no worse off than when I started. In fact, I would have achieved a sense of personal growth so I’d be better off anyway. But she wouldn’t necessarily know any of this.

Cyclic thinking and reasoning is horrible.

For me, the outcome was positive regardless. I decided to go ahead with it. It was all very new to me. I hadn’t truly asked anyone out in over a decade. That’s a long time.

I wanted this to go well so I practiced. You could probably picture me, pacing around my dwelling, trying to get the wording right, like you see in all ‘those’ movies. I would pace around, thinking about what I would say, how I would say it, and worst of all, what would be the potential responses. I swear I came up with at least six responses for every way that I could think of asking.

I often babble. Can you imagine what I would be like, when it's me, I'm nervous and I want something to go well. I daresay anyone who kissed the Blarney stone that night got nothing. The world's useless babble was coming out of my mouth over and over without reaching any point.

I had an additional challenge though. I met this lady during a play that I was in. I was determined that this would not be a 'showmance' (a relationship that only happens for the duration of a production) and I was also scared of making this person feel awkward around me (we did have to work together after all), so I waited until the very last performance to “make my move” (I couldn’t even type that without stopping to do this finger quotations).

Why is it so hard to say: "I like you. I'd like to spend more time with you. Would you like that too?" Three sentences.

In the end, I did it in 1. All of my practice and rehearsals were for naught. I got nervous and rediscovered my 7 year old self. The extent of my asking this lady out was simple.

She asked me if she looked alright. I told her "You do, but I'm not the best person for that job because I've got a little crush on you."

I'm glad that's how it happened. After all of my stressing and panic and planning and theorising, after trying so hard to make it ‘me’ that was asking the question, it was.

It was the most natural way that I could have done it. It was me and in revealing that about myself, I was happy.

It wasn't smooth. Neither am I.
It wasn't clever and witty, neither are my emotions.
It was simple. It was pleasant. It was honest.

My name is Trevor.
I told a girl liked her.
I'm incredibly glad that I did.

Positive Affirmation

My name is Trevor

I think everyone needs positive affirmation in their life

I was on Facebook recently and I got annoyed and sad. It wasn’t the pages of advertisements. It wasn’t at the “Which Teenage Mutant Disney Doctor of the Galaxy character are you?” Quizzes that occasionally pollute my feed. To be honest, I’ve done a couple of those occasionally for a bit of a laugh (Apparently I’m Donatello, Scar, Fourth Doctor, Star Lord and as a bonus, Hoban Wash). Nor was it the endless commentary of the football final. I got both sides of every argument on mass. I don’t even follow the sport.

What annoyed me the most was a number of posts where people were passively or aggressively seeking attention and affirmation from others. These commonly came in two cases.

The first would often be along the lines: “Ugh, I’m so <insert negative quality>”. The desired effect is people disagreeing with the statement and giving them the positive affirmation that they need.

The second was a post more like: “You’re all my friends. You’re all special to me. If you’re my true friend, leave a one word post saying how we met.” Blah, blah, blah. To be honest these ones annoy me more, as they are using a negative feeling, in this case guilt, to get something positive from someone.

Right now you might be thinking “I could really do with some nice buttery popcorn. I can practically smell it.” Or possibly you might be wondering why I’m complaining about people seeking positive affirmation in their life. Especially since the second line of this post is: “I think everyone needs positive affirmation in their lives.”

It’s because these posts are lazy. They are created with the express purpose of other people doing all the work. They are also potentially slow burners and failed experiments. People won’t feel better until they get results from others, or could get unexpectedly hostile responses or worse yet, no response at all <sharp intake of breath>.

Positive affirmation is crucial in someone’s life. It helps to shape a person’s self worth, which often fuels their self confidence (two very different things). While I have been improving both, I possess a relatively low self worth, but an oddly high self confidence.

These thoughts came about recently from two friends of mine. For the first one, I made a joke that something positive that I did made me almost human. She stopped me mid conversation and told me that I was human. I started to explain that it was just an offhanded comment, something of a joke, but she repeated that I was human. As if she could see through my veil of humour to the core of truth beneath it.

Upon later reflection, my friend was right. My intention with that comment was to show that something I had done or said (I really can’t remember what it was), had increased my worth as a person. Helped me grow. Instead, with that flippant comment, I was downplaying my own existence. It’s funny that those words also undermine any comment or achievement that may have preceded it.

“Hey look, that monkey could write its name.”
“Big deal, I was doing that when I was five.”
“Yes but he’s only a monkey so that’s pretty amazing.”
“Fair enough,” and to the monkey: “who’s a clever monkey.”

The funny thing about this scenario, is that the monkey just received positive affirmation. That’s not exactly the kind of positive affirmation that we all need.

The second inspiration, I was visiting someone recently and as I left their place they said to me “We need to be kinder to ourselves.” My reply was, “yes you do.” They was right. We often spend far too much time looking out for the interests of those around us, but neglect ourselves.

Picture a number of concentric circles. You are at the centre circle. Those closest to you are in the next circle. Each circle representing people in your life. The further out you go, the less impact you have on their life and them on yours. Every group that you give positive affirmation to gets lighter, those that you don’t (and let’s be fair, not everything deserves it), get darker. The truth about this is that if you can’t give yourself the positive affirmation, every circle will have the darkness at its centre.

Everyone needs positive affirmation. The hardest place for this to come by is from yourself. It’s probably also the most important source of this resource. Who is going to believe the compliment from someone who has self proclaimed bad taste?

It is okay to accept that you are talented. It is okay to accept that you have abilities that others don’t. You can be better at some activities than others. It is okay to care about what happens to you.

This is being self involved, not self indulgent.

It’s no secret that my life has been difficult this last while. The fact that this post is late, due to me being in hospital is testament to that fact. It was, I think, my fifth hospitalisation this year. I’ve also had a few difficult moments.

Truth be told. Life isn’t easy. It’s not meant to be. A friend of mine often quotes: Trials breed perseverance, perseverance breeds character. I established in my last post that I’m growing for the better. I’m beginning to acknowledge this for myself, and share it with the world.

I’m happier for it.

I want you to be happy too.

I am posing a challenge to you. This is a multi part challenge that I have shamelessly stolen from other people’s posts on Facebook, sometimes modified them. Do them together, do them separately, it doesn’t matter. There are five parts to this challenge. 

1.  Name 5 characters (real or fictional) who have had a positive influence on your life
2. Find 4 quotes that help you positively define yourself.
3. Name 3 activities that you enjoy doing.
4. Find 2 photos where you like how you look (preferably not profile pics).
5. Find 1 positive fact about yourself.

If you take this challenge seriously, I guarantee that you will find a little positive affirmation in your life (even if only for a fleeting moment). If you feel that you want to share this with others, either through social media, or social interaction, by all means, do so. If not, that’s okay too. The whole point is that you do it for yourself. I will be sharing mine over the next five days.

I could really go for some popcorn.

My name is Trevor
I know the importance of positive affirmation.
It starts within yourself.