A Pattern I Carried for Ten Years

Facing Fears

Humans became really good at sharing the negative stuff. Anger, resentment, bitterness… it all comes out pretty easily.

The hard one is telling someone you actually like them.

Not in some grand way. Just straight up… “I really like being your friend.” “I’m attracted to you.” “I’d like to get to know you better.” Doesn’t matter if it’s a friendship or something more.

The games we play trying to dance around that are such a time and energy drain. Especially now, when everything else is so immediate.

There’s no huge commitment involved. No one’s being asked for a ring. The other person just gets to hear that someone sees them and likes what they see.

If you were in their shoes… you’d want that too.

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The Habit

There’s a part of a lot of us that really doesn’t want to be ignored. Doesn’t want to feel insignificant or unappreciated.

And what’s fascinating is… that same part tries to protect itself by staying home.

By not going out. Not networking. Not socializing. Because if you never put yourself in those situations, you can never get ignored. The opportunity never shows up.

But what it actually does is confirm the story. You’re alone, and it feels like proof.

The ironic part is that most people… including the ones running this pattern… feel genuinely alive when they’re around others. Vitality. Connectedness. That’s what’s actually on the other side of it.

It’s a fake protection. And the hard move is reintroducing yourself to people. Showing yourself that the story in your head isn’t real.

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Pay It Forward

I saw this somewhere online and I cannot wait to try it when I get to Mexico.

Walk up to a stranger and offer them money… $50, $100, whatever makes sense for where you are… to cook you a meal at their place.

That’s it. That’s the whole thing.

What it creates though… is this really rare moment of trust between two people who have absolutely no reason to trust each other yet.

They feel good because they get to do something they probably do all the time, for someone who actually wants it. You get a meal, a story, and a look into someone’s world. And some of them won’t even want the money.

It’s technically paying for a friend for the evening… but it doesn’t feel like that at all. It feels like two humans just deciding to go for it.

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From the Week

When I was a kid, I came back from China not knowing much about how things worked socially here. And there were two moments that got in there.

1. I didn’t know what it meant to “take an L.” Got ridiculed for it in front of people.
2. Someone looked me in the eye and said “think before you speak.”

Not just embarrassing moments. They were somewhere deeper.

So for years… more than 10… was this pattern. Overexplaining myself. Always working to mitigate the downside before anything could go wrong. Building a defense before the attack came. Managing how people saw me so I’d never end up looking stupid the way I had back then.

Somewhere along the way, “don’t give yourself away” and “never adjust for anyone” got fused into the same thing.

Any small accommodation… even ones that cost nothing… would trip a wire that said I was being small.

Helping someone for 30 minutes felt like giving away too much. Being asked to adjust anything felt like submission. Like I was beneath them.

And I just couldn’t see it. For 10 years the pattern was running in the background and I didn’t have the awareness to even recognize what it was.

This week I finally could.

I’m grateful for it. Not because it’s comfortable… it’s not. But you can’t work on what you can’t see. And the growth journey asks for patience because some things genuinely take a decade to become visible to you.

You’re not ready to hear something until you’re ready to hear it. That’s not your fault… Honestly that’s just how it works.