If so, the last thing you should allow is for other people to change you. I mean, really...who are they to dictate how you should think and act? Are you not a grown adult capable of making your own decisions?
As I've stressed in several other posts, people will try to goad you into changing for a variety of reasons:
- There's something about you that's a little different, and that makes them feel uncomfortable and insecure.
- They subscribe to the herd mentality, believing everyone in their immediate circle should share exactly the same beliefs, habits, goals, etc.
- They secretly envy you: Rather than celebrate your good qualities, they'd rather see you lose them; instead of cheering your successes, they take delight in your failures.
Indeed, certain people wear an awful lot of masks. They may come off as having good intentions, but deep down they're only looking for a way to make themselves feel better. If they succeed at changing you in some way, it validates their way of looking at the world -- the decisions and experiences they've confronted in their own life.
Thankfully, there are people who will like you just the way you are, never putting any kind of pressure on you to change a single thing about yourself. These are precisely the ones you should gravitate to.
Some people will say you're too sentimental, too nerdy, too hard-working, too loose, too conservative, too contemplative, too much of a homebody, too much of a party animal, and the list goes on. But, again, who are they to pass judgment? How others perceive us may not necessarily be the way we really are, and only we know that.
If you're happy just the way you are, you're not "too" anything. You're perfect. You're content. You're you.
Embrace your individuality wholeheartedly, and never change for anyone but yourself!
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