Soul Searching

>>18471581
>So I ask you, if you are okay with being who you are, comfortable in your own skin, what made you so? Are you proud of yourself, of your life, of whatever it is you do? How did that come to be?
I'm vain. Not proud of it but keeps me from serious depression because I always can just be content with myself which apparently is difficult according to fwb. To get better at something I usually have to personalize the fuck out of it, same with car. It's an expensive toy that can kill you so it's not surprising some aren't as interested and that's fine, different strokes for different folks. You said it yourself, we all have our strengths and weaknesses. Just play to your strengths.
If you get free time you can always try to learn new shit. What was it, takes about ten thousand hours to become a master of something, anything, you just got to want it bad enough, and that drive varies per person.

>>18471581
stop trying to accept yourself and learn how to change yourself. you can only do it by practice. nobody gets things on the first try.

>>18471581
>So I ask you, if you are okay with being who you are, comfortable in your own skin, what made you so?
I accepted a fact that I couldn't possibly give everyone/everything my attention and from there I began to feel comforting gazes from all eyes around me.

>Are you proud of yourself, of your life, of whatever it is you do?
I think everything I've done and doing are not really something be proud of in sense that compared to maybe nobel-prize winners, inventors, and frontiersmen, but I find comfort that when I'm done with something I kinda proving to my older self that I'm able to complete the thing/defied the old self expectations in better ways.

>How did that come to be?
I learn to be like water while still doing what's important to me, then I found inner peace.

>>18471581

realize that the stereotype is just an amalgamation of many different things across cultures and times, people who focus on these things are either A) trying to insist that what they do is right simply because thats the way they were born so they must be the best or B) trying to force a personality that isnt their own just so they can say 'see im manly im so good and not you'.

if A, then why dont you just do the same thing but with your own personality traits? most people use the term 'masculine' or 'real man' simply to control other people. its become a meme. women saying 'REAL MEN ARENT AFRAID TO GET MARRIED' or 'A REAL MAN WOULD PAY FOR EVERYTHING'. they are trying to control you. if you started doing those things, how is that manly? yo uare literally bending ot the will of someone else using entry level manipulation. even on the grander scheme 'real men defend their country' is just a horrible joke to make you lose your life for government interests.

if B, then thats eseentially what you're doign now and its not working, so why bother? ultimately what does it matter if someone is 'ashamed' that you arent good at carpentry?

throughout history and time many great men have existed that do none of those things. what you are describing isn't manly,. what you are describing is blue collar.

blue collars laugh at white collars thinking they're so much better and manlier just because this is the lifestyle they fell into, when they know that if they had any brains or opportunities they'd be white collar too.

and the white collars laugh at the blue collars for thinking they're so superior making very little money and strugglign to raise their families when they could have just been smart and controlled the world the way they do.

TL;DR no one is really manly. the only thing that has persisted across all cultures and times is that a real man doesn't put stock into what other people claim he should do. he just does what he wants, and doesn't care.

You could join our discord server and from time to time, some of us pop into vc and talk to help others. Many have found solace here - https://discord.gg/VDgUaKN

Hi OP I'm the son of a farmer/engineer and I ended up with an arts degree. I grew up surrounded by capable men and I was comparatively worthless, a flaky musician. I would get called 'split arse' or similar by my father jokingly, but also with mostly a sad depressed tone of voice. You don't want to hear shit like "he has soft hands though.." when he is talking to friends or family from people who you want to win the respect of. I got a degree and moved to a city and worked in a nice clean office. Eventually though I got really irritated with the politics and the lack of activity and ended up taking a manual job as part of a start up and now I'm literally Mr Fix it.

Because where as I'm basically crap in comparison to my fathers generation I'm actually capable and skilled in comparison to the generation beneath me. I learnt a lot from him growing up and while I always thought I was useless at things I'm actually not, I just needed some time to work it out on my own. What I'd say is that it'll be impossible to figure out what you are capable of and assess your abilities and even things you truly enjoy with positive motivation rather than negative needy motivation while in the shadow of family members. Go figure it out without trying to do things to prove a point and you might actually feel better about it.

I couldn't fix my car or house or do anything practical until my mid to late 20's. Honestly. I could do electronics and programming, now I've got a good mixture because my father can't handle anything more than simple wiring though he is an excellent metal worker and welder.

Also bear in mind that working guys are generally intimidated by overt displays of intellect and prefer quiet displays of ability. They shit talk things which are different and opinions which don't mirror their own because they feel they work hard and they've got it tough. Where I work now I feel the pressure to act like an uneducated knuckle dragger when in my old job I managed a team of 15.