[enasterosophes]

I feel like I have approached life from the opposite direction of the author. I walked to the beat of my own drum and didn't care too much for opinions about how I was weird. I was making things better, and if other people weren't along for the ride then it just showed how dumb and lazy they were.

Later, I realized that my relentless pursuit of self-improvement hasn't brought me happiness. I need to work hard to cultivate good relationships if I want to be happy.

I suggest this post said more about the author than about life in general.

[logicprog]

In my opinion, you attract what you put out. So I've cultivated extremely close and meaningful relationships with the people around me precisely by always marching to the beat of my own drum. By sticking to what I believe is true and valuable (while allowing my mind to be changed), always incontrovertibly being myself (wearing who I am on my sleeve — it does what it says on the tin ;)), doing what I found rewarding and only that whenever there's a choice, and focusing relentlessly on self improvement, I attracted the sort of people who value the things I value like moths to a lamp, because I stood out and exemplified. And the kind of person I attracted by doing this is the only kind of person I'd be interested in having any meaningful relationship with. If I tried to shave off my rough edges and conform to normalcy in order to win friends and influence people, I'd attract mediocre people I don't find value in, and so although I might have more friends, it would be a hollow victory.

I think people tend to place the virtues I'm talking about — essentially uncompromising (or little compromising) independence and self expression — in opposition to emotional maturity, wisdom, and human connection, but things don't have to be that way. It depends on who you surround yourself with and how you go about expressing and improving yourself. So I didn't need to conform to have friends at all — it just happens that finding friends and being a steady rock of support and insight for them is something I find valuable and rewarding to do, and I include wisdom and acceptance and emotional maturity as aspects to self improve just as I do technical knowledge.

[JohnFen]

> In my opinion, you attract what you put out

Yes, this appear to be an extremely strong effect. I usually phrase it as "you get what you give".

[glitchc]

I started out trying to please other people and became much happier when I stopped. Perhaps change is what makes us happiest?

[enasterosophes]

I think it's more like: when we're young, our unique personalities sieze onto particular strategies that work for us. Later, two things happen: we thoroughly master our default strategy and get bored with using it for everything (like you said, change is enjoyable); and, simultaneously with mastering and getting bored with our default strategy, we also begin to learn that there are nuances to life, so we can't just stick to one approach for everything.