A Tale of Two Jasons

This post was adapted from something that I had previously written.

My whole life, I have been pressured to conform. For the most part, I have resisted. Unfortunately, there is a side of me that has simply caved under the pressure.

When I was stuck in Ohio, I lived two lives. While I was working, I sacrificed everything that I valued in order to be accepted. I hid my strengths and beliefs for fear of getting on people’s bad sides. I didn’t want to be hated, so I buried who I was.

Who I appeared to be was influenced by who I was told to be. People would tell me what I needed to improve, and I would try to improve in those areas. I never questioned whether or not these things were actually flaws. I never looked for bigger problems. I never looked for the root of my problems. Every change I made was on the surface.

As my public and private personalities diverged, it became easier for me to discover problems with my more public side. The more I saw who I was pretending to be, the more I turned against myself. The person that I was becoming was someone that I didn’t like.

The biggest change that I noticed was in how my thought process worked. Simply put, it didn’t. The more I tried to fit in, the weaker my thought process became. As someone who wants to remain mentally active, my newfound mental inactivity became an enormous problem.

Another issue was with my beliefs. Whenever I had a belief that the majority opposes, I would downplay that belief. I am passionate about my educational beliefs. In public, I have simplified these beliefs to little more than, “I don’t like school.” It’s safe to say that I have bottled up too many of my feelings over the years.

During this time, I would frequently receive praise for improvements observed by others. The people who offered this praise meant well, but it actually made me feel horrible. I only saw deterioration, and everyone around me insisted that this deterioration was good. It was like they were saying that they wanted me to be a moron.

When I got back from work each day, I would toss aside the lesser public version of me and let the deeper me move a little bit closer to the surface. I developed a strong grudge against who I was in public and frequently stated, “I hate myself.” This simple comment became a daily occurrence, and living two lives was taking a serious emotional toll.

When I left Ohio, one of my biggest priorities became to draw out the real me. I knew that hiding myself was my own fault, and I did not want to make that mistake again. As long as I live two lives, I will be absolutely miserable.

I actually started off decently. When dealing with others, I stood out a little bit more. The problem with this is that people responded by treating me worse. As I stood by my beliefs and tried to share who I really was, those around me kept increasing the pressure to conform. This hit a low point when my own mother told me that I could maintain my values at home, but I had to be someone completely different in public. While I was trying to correct what I considered to be my biggest flaw, I was being told that I needed to maintain it.

Eventually, I fell into the same traps. Right now, I am in a job that is really not a good fit for who I am. In my current environment, it would be a huge mistake to show people who I really am. I told myself that I was not going to live two lives, but living one is not an option as long as I continue with my current situation.

It is better to be a good person than to appear to be a good person. This can be found in my list of defining beliefs. Deep down, I like who I am. On the surface, I sacrifice these things in order to fit in. This is a flaw. I am going against my own beliefs. Hopefully, anyone who is reading this understands and can forgive me.

As long as I think for myself, I will have thoughts that others will view as unacceptable. The mainstream associates schooling with intellect. If you disapprove of the schools, you will be considered unintelligent. If you form your own opinions rather than let others form them for you, there is a very good chance that they will disapprove. If you think for yourself, people will think that you are stupid. If you live a mindless life, you will accept the mainstream’s opinions of the schools. This will make you look strong mentally.

Who I really am is who I am away from the public. The person that most people think I am is little more than an act. I pretend to be a complete imbecile because that is the only way that people will treat me as though I am not one.

In many ways, this act of idiocy is for survival. In this world, you need money to survive. If everyone looks down on me because they hate me, I can’t get a job to earn that money. Where should I draw the line? How much should I sacrifice and how much should I expect for these sacrifices? Right now, I think I have given up way too much for far too little.

At some point, I am going to have to make a solid commitment to one side or the other. I feel that I am a good person deep down, but society will not accept that side of me. Who society wants me to become is someone that I simply can’t respect. In which way should I have no life? Should I be someone who has no hope for a decent career or someone who spends an entire lifetime hating himself? Let me share another one of my defining beliefs. Who I am is more important than what I am. If I can find the strength, I need to reveal the socially unacceptable me. After all, that’s the better me.

There were numerous ideas influencing my decision to start this blog. Among them was the idea that I betrayed myself when I repeated the self-sacrifice that I made in Ohio. I would like to use this blog to push the real me out into the public. In some ways, I am even trying using my inexcusable public conformity to my advantage. As long as I feel guilty about what I’m doing wrong, I will feel obligated to compensate.