Times of Change and Being Intentional

A few years ago, I started reading How to Win Friends and Influence People because I thought it could help with my lack of friends.  I read two pages, which contained anecdotal human interactions, to which I thought, "These people are stupid."  At that point, I thought, "This book is wasted on me."  I never finished the book.

Almost two months ago, I started The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  I'm about halfway through.  Do you know how hard it is to read boring common sense?  It's hard.  Especially for someone who is already excruciatingly slow at reading AND can't focus.  I am uncomfortable when people have to watch me fill out forms because how long it takes.  Also, one of my roommates with ADHD laughed at me for taking two months to read a book that she read in two days.  So, yeah, I would say it's difficult.  Besides not being done, it's been a good reminder to become better.

Although the two books aren't the same, I would clump them into the same category: improve your dang skills books.  Or minimize ineptitudes books. Or don't be dumb books.  Any of those categories.  Any will work.  I think for the first book, I just wasn't ready to change.  If we look at the stages of change, I was in the precontemplation/contemplation area for the winning friends book.  I knew that I wasn't good at making friends, but I didn't really think that I needed to make any.  And now, I am on the contemplation track with self-improvement.  "Should that be a good idea?" said 4-year-old Griffin.  I think it should be.

Anyway, things need to change because I am a jobless, homeless (of sorts but not really), single millennial.  I could just say that I'm a millennial, and then people would be like, "Well that's your problem.  Too bad that can't be changed."  Adding the other three words just makes people even more irate or censorious.  I should just resign to my misfortune.  (Or my plight.)  Okay, sorry, sometimes I just get these ideas in my head, and then they come out into my writing.  Mostly, I need to get a job and a place to live because being single and being a millennial are useless worries.  And I just added them to make the problem more tantalizing.  (Attention-seeking much?  I dare say yes.)

The whole idea of this is that I am trying to be more intentional.  I want to set better, more achievable goals for myself.  Not only to get a job, but to be a better neighbour, sister, daughter, etc.  I think because of the way my life has awkwardly turned out in the last 6 months, I am finally able to realize how much I actually need to change and what I want to/need to work on first.  Getting a job.  And intentionally talking to strangers.  I don't do so well at initiating conversations based on some unhelpful beliefs about myself.  So that should be a good idea to change.

It's hard being intentional.  I set goals and don't do very well at keeping them.  So, I guess keep a head's up for a new social experiment that I will put together in the next month.  I'll let you know what my goals are and how I plan on talking to strangers.  Excited?  Probably not.  Because I am really my only reader, and I am not excited.