StillKickin5

The speaker discusses the concept of self-identity and how people often define themselves based on external factors and others' opinions. They recount a conversation with a friend who expressed dissatisfaction with the past year and their own perceived limitations. The speaker encourages the friend and the listener to challenge these self-imposed limitations and redefine themselves based on their own aspirations. They emphasize the importance of recognizing one's own potential and not comparing oneself to others. The speaker concludes by urging the listener to pursue their goals, be inspired by others, and embrace the infinite possibilities of self. You are infinite. You have an infinite amount of identities. You have an infinite amount of perceptions of you. You have an infinite amount of definitions. Yet you continue to define yourself in certain ways, certain words. You let others' definitions define who you are. The definition that you have for yourself changes depending on the day, your mood, or even the time of year, the season. So why do we do this? My name is Joe, and I am doing a podcast episode for Still Kicking, so let's get on with it. So lately I've been talking to a lot of friends about just the end of the year, the goals that we have for the upcoming year, the upcoming semester, how we thought this year went. And there was one person in particular that we were talking about or that I was talking to, and I was asking her, I was like, well, how do you think this year went? Like were you satisfied with it? Were you satisfied with the semester you had? And she was just talking about it, and she just told me straight up no. She told me no, and I asked her why. And she was just talking about how she just was unsatisfied in a way. She had a goal that didn't come to fruition, that she had thought about for a long time, and it just didn't happen. And at that point I started to ask her, I was like, you know, well, what do you want to do? It was one thing I heard recently, and it's like along the lines of your greatest fear is change. We as people, our greatest fear is change. That's where anxiety stems from. That's where just the fear of the future comes from. And I think it's funny because I was asking her, like, well, what do you want to do? And she didn't have an answer. And I don't blame her. Like I think I hit times, like speaking on my own behalf, where I'm in a low and I just don't know what to do. I think about goals that I could have, but just nothing ever seems to stick. And sometimes when I get into those states, I try to flip it on its head, and this is what I try to do with her, is I had to ask, like, who do you get inspired by? Who do you look up to? And it doesn't have to be one person. It could be bits and pieces of a bunch of different people. And what is it of them that you want to have? And she gave me an example, and I was actually kind of honored. She mentioned me as being one of them, but she named a couple people. And I started to ask her, like, why is it that they inspire you? And she told me she talked about traveling and she talked about just being spontaneous and having crazy stories. And then that led me to my next question, and it was, why don't you do that? What's stopping you from doing that? And that's where my little intro comes in, because she started to tell me, she's like, you know, Joe, like, I just don't know. I'm not extroverted enough. I'm not spontaneous enough. I can't do that. I can't do this. I don't have the will to travel. I don't have the traits. I'm just not able to. And I think it's funny, because I think a lot of people do this, and even myself, like, I catch myself doing it too, where I look at these other people, where I see them, you know, just going crazy doing whatever they do, whatever their niche hobby is, and just excelling at it. And I'm like, you know, I don't know if I can do that. But at the same time, I think we can. And that's what I told her. I told her, I was like, you know, I think you are more capable of doing that I was like, you know, I think you are more capable than anybody, more so than me, in doing this kind of thing. And I don't mean to speak about her this whole time, but I guess I just leave this up to you, is, you know, you are more capable than you realize. The fact that you're thinking about these people and thinking about what they're doing and how successful they are is already one step in the right direction. You know, they always say, like, problem recognition is the first step. And, I mean, as cliche as it is, like, there's some truth to it. When you sit down and you look at these people that you aspire to be or those, like, the traits that they have that you aspire to have yourself, it's like, that's that first step. Because everything you can work towards, and even if you don't get to the level that they're at, you're at least moving in that direction. And not to go back to the example earlier, but when I was talking to her, she talked to me about that and how she just wasn't adventurous enough, how she wasn't extroverted enough to talk to these people to get these stories. And I love the saying, you are infinite, because I think it applies to this best. You may have times of your day where you're a little bit more introverted. You are going to have times in the day where you're a little bit less spontaneous, where you just want to crawl up into your bed and just, like, lay in bed. You're going to have days where you want to be lazy and don't go to the gym. But, you know, you're also going to have moments where you do wake up and you feel energized, where you do feel extroverted. You are the life of the party. I think about the way people define themselves often, and I think about that with myself, and I try to refrain from doing that. I think about the people who lead sentences off, and I'm treading lightly when I say this, but I can't do that because I'm anxious. And I think about something like that, like that's a little bit heavier of a statement. I can't lift that weight because I'm weak. I guess that's more of like a literal sense, but, you know, just things like that where it's so negative and it cuts it off dry. And I guess through my rambling, babbling, yapping, what I'm trying to say is I would suggest you to try to flip that on its head. Yeah, I'm anxious, but I can do that, or I can give it my all, my try my best. Yeah, I might not be able to lift that weight now, but I can get there in the future. Maybe this is the optimist side of me, but I just don't think the world is as black as white as people state it to be. You are not an anxious person. You just get anxious often. You are not a boring person. You just don't go on adventures right now, and that's okay. So that's kind of the first thing. That's a piece of advice I have for you is watch how you define yourself. And with that being said, I think about this summer when I backpacked to Europe, actually. I started to get so caught up by the way I defined myself as a person. I told myself, I was like, and it was all positive, and I don't mean this to come off in a cocky way. It's just I'd like to think of myself as an extroverted person. Like I try to be funny often. I try to meet people. I try to talk as much as I can. But I remember being in the face of a bunch of people at hostels, and I was unable to speak. I was mute. It felt like I was the total opposite of myself. And weirdly enough, I was reading a book at the time, and it started to talk about this whole topic that applied to what I was going through perfectly. It was just saying that you yourself are not one person. Like for my example that I was just talking about, like for my example that I was just talking about, like when I walked into that and I was not the extroverted person that I deemed myself to be, it's not that I wasn't being myself. It's just I'm not a one-dimensional person. I have multiple selves. Like I have different identities, different definitions, like I mentioned earlier. And I think that's something that we often forget is that we are always ourself. It's just ourself is infinite in a sense, if that's making sense. If it doesn't, think on it a bit more and try your best to make it make sense. I think there's times where I get so caught up in looking at others too. And like I said earlier, like I think it's very good to pick traits from people that you want to have. But at the same time, you've got to remember that you're you too. And I think I mentioned this in a previous podcast, but it started to weigh me down when I saw other people doing the things that I wanted to do and they're just doing them better than I ever could or I could ever dream to do. And I just get so bogged down. And I don't even know if I'd call it jealousy. It was just like sadness. It was like, wow, these people are better than me. But at the same time, like I think that gives me comfort. When I actually thought about it more, because I think sometimes it's okay to be mediocre too. I think it's okay to just go out and try and to experience life for what it is and to not be bound by trying to be the best all the time. So I guess to relate it back to the start, when talking to that person, she was talking about how she wants to just go on more adventures. And I think we look at other people who are the best at going on those adventures and going crazy on trips and having the craziest stories. I guess what I'm trying to say is that doesn't have to be you. But if that's something you aspire to do, then do it. And that's what the moral of this podcast is. I wanted to give you some advice on do what you want. Ask yourself about what your goals are, who you aspire to be, the people that you look up to. What do they do to get to where they're at? And then why don't you try to take some of those traits yourself? I think there's a lot of life to live. Life is short, but life is long at the same time. And you get the full opportunity to take the wheel and do what you want with it. So define yourself how you want to define yourself. And that's what I got. Thank you for listening.