Be yourself! Everybody else is taken.

I saw this saying in a magazine recently and told my wife that I think it's great.  But, then I started to think about it.  That's where I got in trouble.  I told her that's fine for normal people, but what if you don't know who you are.  Here I am at 57 and I'm still wondering about this stuff.  She told me that one of my biggest faults is that I over think things too much. I just thought I'd share the motto and my reaction to it so you'd get a better picture of what I'm like.  I'm often the oddball on this forum.  I had been in therapy for about 15 years before I got a therapist who had enough sense to tell me to stop trying to analyze what was going on while in a therapy session  and just let him think about that.  He was a wise man and my therapy progressed quickly after that.  I stopped therapy about 10 years ago, but I've been seeing psychiatrist for about 20 years and will continue that until I die since they determine my meds ( a succession of shrinks--not more than one at a time). Oops!  The I go again saying too much.  So, please forgive me if my comments sometimes seem to go against the grain.  I'm just trying to contribute to the dialogue on this forum.  I haven't posted on the Main forum in a long time and I agree that I'm glad we have a place where men can be men without all of the crap and silliness that goes on over there.  I haven't even looked at it in a long time, but new posters keep talking about how bad it is.

When I was a young man and quite self-conscious I felt that I was the only person that didn't know anything. Now that I'm much older and not so self-conscious I now know that no one else knows anything either. I don't mean that in a cruel or sarcastic way. I'm just trying to say that "just be yourself" is damn hard to do because we have few, if any, reference points to use as indicators of who we are.  So guys, if  reference points exist that help us figure out who we are, what are they?

I'm sorry guys. See what happens when we let women post on the board!!!!! 

I appreciate your first reply, but I don't get the second one.  There are no women posting on this thread yet.  Don't worry, you're not being too PC.

hey sj,

just glad you have place to go to. i don't think of you as an oddball if that helps. i only get mad at fire starters and i really can only think of one or two occasions that got me mad on here. you know, a lot of the guys agreed with your assesment of that "post". so what if some of us feel differently? the whole point is that we're friends in the end and will always have each others back. i'm really guilty of saying way too much to sometimes. i get embarrased about that at times. i never did group or anything but i've come to realize how important this forum is to me. it was a whole new experience to reach out to these guys and then comment on their views and opinions. believe me, it's not about going against the grain. it seems there's a million opinions to each post. that's what's so cool. we express ourselves and look out for each other. sometimes it's not what we want to hear but we ask and we recieve. so keep coming here and stay off that main board, it's over the top......lol.....carbonblob

I think I need to clarify something here. After my first post I got to thinking that maybe that sounded just like something a women would say and I got a little embarresed. So my second post was an attempt at humor stemming from some of the recent "activity" we've had here. I certainly did not mean to belittle anything sjbob had said. If it was taken that way, please accept my apology.  Doug

I wasn't offended by your original post.  I just thought I had missed whatever humor was in the second post.  Again, I'm overthinking things.  No harm, no foul.

Whew!  It's hard work trying to make a funny.  Merry X-mass.