Are you projecting the wrong image of yourself? People do it all the time.  It can be on purpose or just a result of years of just assuming a certain role.  You find a comfortable place in acting or feeling a certain way and you kind of just stay there, often with no rhyme or reason.  

You’re the life of the party, so you keep up that image by putting on a front of being the loudest and drunkest person in the room. You’re the lovable loser…always projecting the loser part. You’re the guy who is mad at the world and you feed off of everyone trying to cheer you up. You’re the “find the negative in everything girl”. You’re known for the negatives and you will always be painted into that corner. People around you will change and one day you will find yourself acting a part for the sake of acting the part; surrounded by a different group of people because everyone else has changed or moved forward, but your negative legacy lives on. 

If you walk around with a chip on your shoulder, people may try to knock it off or feed into that chip. You are giving others a target that allows them to characterize you as something or treat you in a certain way.  Yes, you need to be known for something in life, but is this the thing that you want people to use to describe you?  You obviously lack depth in personality if people can’t describe you beyond that chip. You also use the chip as a life crutch and fear sharing anything beyond that chip carrying experience or personality front you keep projecting. 

If you go through life looking damaged, wronged or harmed, people will treat you as such. I’m not saying you need to mask your feelings or put up a good front.  If there is anything in this world I wish people would be better at is the sharing of those feelings. People don’t embrace sad, cold or lifeless people. They pity them. We are all drawn to passionate individuals who care about the world and people around them. Charisma and passion are important in attracting people to you. Yet, if you constantly carry yourself as damaged or broken, the attention you receive will always be pity.  People may befriend you, but only because they need someone sadder or more broken than they are.  Nobody wants to date the saddest person in the room and pity sex only really happens in the movies. 

We naturally size people up when we first meet them.  What is this person all about?  What makes them tick?  This person is magnetic and I need to know why. If you have charisma, you can light up a room.  If you are a sad sack, you can bring down the mood really quick and eventually find yourself sitting all alone in the elementary school lunchroom of life.  

I know people that, in the first few minutes of meeting them, tell you their sad life story. They just cough it up. Out of some strange insecurity, they just need you to know how terrible it’s been for them and that the room needs to pay attention to them because they are so fragile or whatever. They assume, because the person they are meeting is so happy, that they can competitively out “sad sack” the other guy.  It’s pretty amazing to watch honestly. 

We all have baggage of some sort that would make us candidates for being Debbie Downer, but some of us just decide to be positive and not let these negative experiences define us.  I’m not suggesting you mask your pain for the sake of public appeal.  Confront your issues and baggage and don’t allow those things to negatively define you. Stop being and acting wounded to gain attention for all the wrong reasons. Remove the chip off your shoulder and don’t make yourself a target.  Emoting negative baggage is a crutch and crutches should only be used by people who truly are injured. 

#pullthetrigger. #getup  how do you want to be treated? People with baggage. Pull the trigger.  Get up.