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“You haven’t changed a bit! You still look the same!”

Really? I hadn’t seen this person in about five years. In this period there’s been so much in terms of change and transformation. Of course, it’s not like she could judge all of the internal shifts that have gone on with just a minute of conversation. From a physical perspective though, does it genuinely look like nothing changed? I know no harm was intended, but considering all of the hard work, sweat, and tears I’ve expended in an attempt to be a better Jason, saying that I’m still the same person as I was five years ago is kind of sad. And if I want to take it a step further, I could say it’s insulting. Thing is, she was being nice. She was trying to make a connection. In the end, what she says doesn’t really matter because it has no bearing whatsoever on our acquaintance status. So here I am just stewing in my own juices, extrapolating things too far for my own sanity. I suppose in some respects I haven’t changed much in five years after all.

Continue reading »]]> The whole Type A and Type B personality theory division thing came up in conversation today. Out of curiosity I looked it up in Wiki and found this:

The theory describes a Type A individual as ambitious, aggressive, business-like, controlling, highly competitive, impatient, preoccupied with his or her status, time-conscious, and tightly-wound. People with Type A personalities are often high-achieving “workaholics” who multi-task, push themselves with deadlines, and hate both delays and ambivalence.

No, I don’t find myself matching every single bit of this definition, but I can see where a lot of that applies to my life. I push myself. I’m ambitious. When I’m sitting and not doing anything I tend to feel guilty. I do piles and piles of unrelated stuff and I tend to be great at a lot of it. A lot of what I do has some sense of urgency. All true, right? It sounds good on paper except for the fact that people who are Type A are more prone to coronary heart disease. Understandably so. That’s a lot of extra stress. So I’m wondering are there aspects of Type B personalities that I should learn to embrace? Both types can learn a thing or two from the other side. I need to relax. I need to take self-inflicted pressure off myself. There’s no reason to fall under one camp or the other. Maybe I should learn to be more like an A- or a B+. Seems a whole lot saner, don’t you think?

Continue reading »]]> At some point, I need to stop analyzing the heck out of every little thought and every little detail that pops into my head. Once in a while it’s more valuable to just let things be and accept that things are the way they are. That in itself doesn’t need to be analyzed either. Just be, right?

Continue reading »]]> I’m really not fond of writing bios. I mean, I find it hard enough to write about myself as if I was the bee’s knees (whether or not that’s actually true is irrelevant). Trying to convey an idea of who I am and what drives me in just a paragraph or two is rather difficult. We’re all quite multi-layered. Can we really be summarized so easily? Or course not. However, people don’t want a whole life story, right? People don’t need to know about all of my little neuroses in all their crazy splendour. All a bio needs to do is introduce a person, and make the reader think “Hmm, this guy is kind of interesting: I want to know more.” So, even though I may want to dump everything out in an attempt to achieve a lot more clarity, there’s just no need. My actions and activities will probably speak louder than anything I may put on paper. Isn’t there some fear with that though? Someone might read my bio and think, “Yeah…I don’t care to know any more about this person.” At that point it doesn’t matter anymore if you’ve done something ridiculously wonderful. You’ve already been judged. You’ve been sorted and filed.

There’s also the matter of keeping a bio up-to-date. This particular post was kind of spurred on when I was poking around the blog and found that my “About Jason” page was getting old. A while ago I took to actually including a date as to when the page was last updated. It seemed necessary all things considered. However I may describe myself at the time of writing won’t be true even just months later. How quickly should I update? Am I really having a moment of “Oh God, people ought to know that I’ve already accomplished all of that shit”?

In some places, the required bios are almost laughably limited. How the heck do I distill myself into a handful of characters. In Twitter, I’ve got:

Comp eng, e-commerce platform dev, Waterloo grad, flat-footed runner, unintentional foodie, improviser dude, tea drinker, and single guy in the city.

Well, that’s out of date. I’m not in e-commerce anymore, right? In my flavors.me profile I have:

20-something, runner, improviser, baker/cook, programmer.

That guy.

Probably accurate. Still, writing it this way seems like I’m only as good as my activities.

Why am I complicating all of this?

In the end, how the world perceives me doesn’t hold up as being as important as how I perceive myself. I am an awesome person, and words can’t really encapsulate all of that.

Continue reading »]]> It’s been a bit of a work in progress. Over the years I’ve just gotten good at being defensive and removing myself from sources of hurt. In the end, it only means that a lot of it has been bubbling under the surface. Even one small nick or scratch can cause it all to come gushing out. It’s not a good state to be in. So, lately I’ve been working on finding the sore spots and acknowledging the things associated with that pain. I’m not brushing any of it off as trivial, because obviously if there’s pain it’s at least important on some level, right? All of this work is slowly taking the edge off. Maybe I’m not as manic or loopy as I might have been just a year ago. I’m still working on it, but I like the direction I’m headed.

Continue reading »]]> In talking with someone I know, we kind of identified the fact that I like to do awesome stuff to somehow get the approval of other people. ”Oh, I’m good at this! People are going to think I’m awesome!” I know it’s sort of neurotic-sounding when I frame things that way, but it’s sort of true. It’s part of why I coach. It’s part of why I do improv. It’s part of why I bake. It wouldn’t be uncommon of me to really go out of my way to do something to help out even though it would be a big time sucker for me and my personal time.

Over at my not-so-local Running Room they’re having a bit of a Canada Day potluck event on Wednesday. I wanted to contribute! I was thinking about it on my way back home from coaching. I would probably make glazed shortbread cookies, but that would require blocks of butter, which would require me to head to the store. By the time I get back it’d be about 9-ish, which would mean I have a few hours to get it all together. While I’m working on that I could multitask and work on coding a website that I volunteered to do. I could do that all while catching up on PVR’d episodes of shows that I’ve been meaning to catch up on. If I’m lucky I could get to sleep by 1 or 2 a.m. Hurray! Yeah, after outlining things that way, I decided to just let go of baking for the event. There’s just no sense in trying to cram that in. There’s no time! As much as it would be appreciated, it’s not a matter of life or death if I participate. And in not doing so people are not going to judge and say “Oh, Jason is so damn lazy!” There’s no need to kill myself for a bit of approval. If I bake it should be because I genuinely want to do it.