Work is over

I'm done with it. My work will be ending soon and I will be preparing to go back to school. I have quite a few things on my list of stuff to do. I have to make sure that my class schedule works. I also have to pack up what I want to bring to school. It shouldn't be hard, because I planned out most of what to bring last semester.

There are also a few things that I want to do before school starts again, but don't particularly need to. I was thinking about bleaching my hair. I've been thinking about it for a good chunk of time now, maybe half a year, but this is truthfully the first opportunity I will have to do so. I don't know why I want to do it. I just feel like it. This is good enough for me.

On top of that, I feel the need to hang out with friends one last time before school starts again. Though, this probably won't actually happen. It's unfortunate, but realistically I'm just going to hide in my room for a week and a half. I'll emerge when necessary.

Also, status update on my personal goals for change. I am getting in fights with the father very infrequently. It only happens when he yells about something I didn't say. He asked about my school dorm bill and I said, "Okay. I'll find the information. I don't have it off the top of my head because I didn't know that it was my responsibility to remember it." He heard, "Paying the dorm bill isn't my responsibility." He yelled that it is. I said that I'm sorry, and agreed that it is. He said, "And you remember that." Okay. All in house fights are now started and ended by him. This makes me happy. Not that he fights himself, but that I'm not involved in the fight.

I also resolved long standing issues with my mom. I apologized for all the fights that we get in constantly. I said, because it's the truth, that they are my fault. I would defensively accuse her of being passive aggressive, when I should have been solving the problems that she was hinting at. We had a great talk. It was one of the best that we've had in years.

I am recognizing when my mind is formulating assumptions and stopping myself most times. I can make general assumptions, like that a store is open if the mall is open, and harmless assumptions, like that most stores stay open until 8, but no specific or dangerous assumption. I will not assume that I know what someone is thinking. This goes for judgments as well. When I see a person, I will talk to them. I will not think that I know who they are based on looks or what they like. I will also not judge things that I have not experienced personally. I do not know if Prototype is a fun game. I have never played it. Then, even if I do play it and find it boring, I cannot tell someone else that they shouldn't like it. I'm allowed to not like it. They are allowed to like it. I'm not allowed to tell them that I have rights they do not.

I was already trusting. When Paarth told me that he was playing as a scout in TF2, I never questioned it until I was backstabbed by him. He plays spy far too often (not that spy is bad, but that I like living and can't continue doing that if he's a spy). Now I need to be more trusting. In the magnet, everyone had reasons. If they said "I don't know" then you knew that they were lying. However, not everyone is a magnet student. Not everyone does know why they do something or like something. I should be okay with this. Then again, if they do know and still tell me that they don't, they probably don't want to tell me, so I should let it go. This is who I am being. My dad asked me what a person who spoke to him was thinking. Instead of saying 'Maybe this or that...' I just told him that he should stop guessing what other people are thinking. He could ask them. If they want to tell him, then he'll know. If they don't want to tell him, then he won't and he should be okay with that. I'm learning to be okay with that.

I learned also, that arguments with no end are useless and frustrating. This will help me in leaps and bounds while rooming with Ben. I will not try to convince him that science is another belief. He says it isn't. I think it is. We won't agree. Therefore, we can continue to not agree and still be happy within the vicinity of one another by understanding the views of one another and not trying to change them. In fact, we can not try to change them even without understanding them.

I'm so glad that I have so many friends who support me. Even the ones who completely don't understand my new way of thinking accept it. Even the ones who think it's a terrible idea understand that it may not be a terrible idea to me. Then there are the friends on the other end of the spectrum. Some promise to hit me when I start to think too much. It doesn't sound like the best promise, but I am pleased that they are willing to do this for me.

I will be a new man. I will have money from my job. I will have better relationships with everyone around me. I will like who I am. Yet, I will still be me. I will just be a more friendly me. I won't stop being analytical, but I won't make other people be analytical. There's a reason that people who aren't analytical are called practical. Their methods work. They know what they need to, and accept that they don't need to know more. It's truthfully an enlightening and relieving view on life. I don't think I could do it, but I can live with people who can.

My mom is a practical person. I think that my resolutions of long standing problems with her are definitive proof that I'm getting better at interacting with people. It already shows that my goals aren't nearly as hard to attain as I thought they were.

As was once said by some famous person (William Arthur Ward), "The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails."

I cannot complain about people being practical. I cannot change them. I can change how I interact with them so that we can get along great.