06/21/23

People Observation 1: The Character and the Coworker

There is this hint of a pattern that I am starting to pick up in life with people I know, and have known. I havn't been in the working force very long, but I come across people that are like if you were to extract an attribute of myself and multiply it by a factor of 10. The most recent example is a coworker of mine. He is extremely timid. So timid that a hint of having any perception of him makes him sick. He is a nice guy, but just so extremely paranoid all the time about everything that it makes him hard to be around. I was very similar to that myself, for the entirety of my high school career, I worried. It's an exhausting attribute to have and be exposed to. Prior to this coworker, I knew a guy that was so care free I envied him. Just didn't care about a thing. With one exception of course, himself, to an extreme. This character was the complete polar opposite of the previously stated coworker. I, truthfully, envied him so much that I had a crush for a very long time. This ability was just amazing to me, but what I didn't see at the time was that there is a balance to it all. My theory is that I have subconsciously learned from being exposed to them. The character and the coworker are just two examples of the extremes of me, or what I could be. Without one or the other you could be so uncaring that you can't comprehend others emotions, empathy, or you can be so caring that it kills you inside. And I choose to be a fraction of both.

There are other examples of this phenomena that I have seen. There was a man I used to work with when I worked on phone systems that, was just, disgusting. I hated him, and I hated when he would do something that I would do, because I had this idea that he could be me in the future, that there was a chance I could turn out like him. I am confident now that I won't. But I wasn't then, like how I didn't see that the personality of either of the two above are examples of potent options of what I could be, but have instead intercepted either path and have found that I am neither extreme.

-FishByte