Do You Know Your Enemy?

No, no, not the Green Day song, do you know who the person is that has held you back all your life? Possibly one of your teachers? A childhood friend who has weighed you down? Your parents? Siblings? A neighbor possibly? I don't want to sound mean but I think quite a few people understand or know that, if they had just dropped some "dead weight" in their life, they could be a little bit more successful. There are some people in our lives that maybe take an alternate route along the way and it ultimately sidetracks us from what we wish to accomplish. You want to know who that person was in my life? You really want to know? Me. It was me for the first 18 years of my life. I was my biggest obstacle. I was my biggest challenge. I cared so much about making other people happy that I didn't even tend to my own needs. Now thats good right, forgetting yourself for others? Wrong. Always look out for number one, it will make you feel alive if you do. Let me explain.

Back in high school I believe I was literally depressed but I didn't want anyone to see how miserable I was, even though I didn't like who I was (to myself). I was always nice to other people and I don't belive I was ever a bad friend or a backstabber, that is the part of myself that I actually did like. The part that I didn't like was the emotionally and socially insecure individual who just wanted to have friends and cared for nothing more. Not even myself. I hated my body image, my inabilities to start or hold a conversation, and my lack of confidence. And I'm almost positive that people saw it regardless of how hard I tried to not show it.

So what did I do? What did I do to make me into the person I am today? The person who is not the "home-body", the person with a social life, the person that many people now call friend. What did I do? Well, for starters I went away to college. Going to college was the biggest thing in my life that enabled this change, I learned a lot. From classes yes, but from others around me even more. I went in to college with the attitude and determination of changing from this miserable person into someone more likable, who that person was in August 2007? I did not know but I was aiming high.

Freshman Year was a great time for me but it was also a transition period where the old me and the "new" me clashed and fought, it tore me up inside. I possibly lost some people that could have been great friends because of my "bi-polar" personality. Included in there are my roommate T.P., the Big Guy, N.P., who wanted to catch squirrels all the time and keep them as pets, and the funny guy who many people liked T.F. I took them all on a roller coaster ride of emotions that first year. But they were the ones that taught me a lot of what I know now, nobody likes the guy who thinks he is perfect. For the reason that they were the first three guys I met and hung out with at Mount, I really wanted to make an impression and I did, but I made the wrong type of impression. I put on this image that I was hot-shit and everyone should like me, wow was I wrong, so so wrong.




Along the years I have slowly turned into the person I am now. But it took time, much longer than I think most people would try and endure. I knew however that a change had to be made, so I set my mind to it. And, at first, I turned into the stereotypical person I pretty much despised, a cocky and collected individual who "didn't care". However, how I felt as this new person was amazing, this new found confidence was like a drug, I couldn't get enough. As time went on and I made more friends who introduced me to there friends and I also met other people in classes. [I started getting a little taste of how it felt to have more than 10 friends (these 10 friends are E.S.; D.S.; J.S.; and another J.S. <--family. G.S.; S.C.; J.S.; G.M.; J.K; and S.D. <--friends.) I have known them for many years and they put it up with all of my bullshit. I'll always be there for you guys, ALWAYS.] Now for the friends I have met over the years (S.H.; B.K.; J.H.; T.P.; G.K.; D.B.; A.A.; R.G.; V.L.; J.S.; M.W.; S.G.; and R.K.), I have grown to love them as well, they were always giving me pointers, advice, a reality check, and friendship. These are the friends I learned from. Whenever we hung out I observed everything they did, from how to talk to girls and how to say certain things, and all the way to what to do on the weekends, and what to do at 3 in the morning. I thank my closest 23 friends for sticking by me through this time that was especially difficult for me.

I have even had one of my closest friends L.A. say how much she "Didn't like the "New Jason"." Now that one hurt, but she knows now that I like who I am and she should respect that, she even admitted I was "growing on her". 

Thank you all for reading this, and if you can really feel and understand my emotion in this then you are either one of my good friends or are more than likely one of the 23.

I am who I am and I love who I am now because I have a life, friends who I couldn't live without, and my amazing girlfriend. I would die for any one of you. I love you all and I would not be the person I am today without you. The person that even I can accept.