Goal-oriented and perfectionistic

I completely failed in my Old Year's resolutions, so I'm going to go back to what I normally do- try to grow up a bit without specifying what that means.

I understand and often admire goal-oriented people and there are (very) occasional times that I envy them. But on balance, I think that life is richer when you focus on the journey and let your goals follow from that. And yes, I know I am speaking from a position of privilege when I say that, so I'll try to stay focused on the types of goals that aren't especially affected by privilege. Wait, is that a goal? Arghh! So my non-goal is to minimize the meta and move on to what I actually want to say.

Of all the goals that people hold, I think the most harmful is the often-thought but never mentioned goal of having other people like you. It would be hard for me to state how much damage that goal can do to a person, but the main result is that people will not like you.

I know someone for whom it appears to be critically important that people like them. They have a responsible job with decision-making authority, and they see themself as a leader- someone with principles who stands up for them (I'm pretty sure they would not recognize that I was talking about them if they read this), but that's not how other people see them. Other people see someone who will bend over backward to ingratiate themself to everyone they come in contact with, even if it is contrary to their stated beliefs. So they end up being someone who people kind of sort of like, who is useful if you need some kind of accommodation, but who stands for nothing and isn't worthy of respect. Because you can't be true to yourself if you're always measuring yourself based on how others perceive you. And that will always end up biting you in the ass.

When I was in my early 20's I told a friend that I was trying to perfect my personality. It's a weird thing to say- he was taken aback and told me firmly and repeatedly what a bad idea it was. I still remember it for some reason, maybe because it was kind of embarrassing and maybe because I thought they didn't really understand what I was talking about. Of course there's no perfect personality. What I was hoping to do was become the most perfect, and maybe that's the wrong word, version of myself.

It ended up taking a very very long time to approach my best self, and the breakthrough was when I stopped caring what people thought of me. It is hard to describe what a liberating thing that was. I was happy with who I was, and people could take it or leave it. And enough people decided on their own to accept and maybe even like me as I am. But it's up to them.

I'm not sure if that would be possible when I was much younger, because when you're young you don't really know who you are. So my advice, if you're looking for some, is to focus on understanding and liking yourself and stop concerning yourself with others' opinions. Because one thing I've learned is that you cannot make people like you. But if you're true to yourself the chances are that people will.