Still no check today, so I called up the welfare office and it turns out it was sent to our previous address.

This is actually potentially good news, in that we might be able to just swing by there this weekend and pick it up. Otherwise, there would be no way I could get it until at least Monday.

But we might not be able to, either. I have no idea what conditions back at Seafair are like now. They said they were going to do massive renovations, so for all I know, the mailboxes are in the back of someone’s truck by now.

So I dunno. I hope it’s there, but I am prepared for it not to be, because apparently the forces of nature and fate are not done fucking with me and stressing me out.

Perhaps this is destiny’s way of giving me a stress test. I have mentioned before how it feels like I have finally emerged from my shell, and the universe has responded by saying “There he is! Make a bunch of stuff happen to him!”. I went a long time with not a lot happening to me day by day. I hated it, and I am glad I escaped and became the kind of person things actually do happen to, but I do feel a tad shell shocked from time to time.

When I am really indulging my anthropomorphization of the universe, I fancy that the hands of fate have challenges waiting for me to help me grow stronger, and like in an RPG style video game, when I level up, the challenges get harder.

The lesson I truly need to learn is that I can overcome difficulties and I don’t have to collapse the moment things because hard or scary or complicated.

And every obstacle overcome goes to prove that. That is how you build emotional strength, and from that comes self-confidence and self-esteem. Once you accept that doing things that make you feel good about yourself is important enough to invest effort into, you can find your motivation to find the things you can do along those lines.

The key is to pick things that are not the normal things you do, but are not too much harder than your usual routine. For me, that is things like going out

Oh, and speaking of stress, my computer just crashed, shattering the relative calm that had settled over me as I blogged and chatted with my online friends. So now I got stress chemicals in my blood and I feel on edge again.

I think the social services guy I talked to on the phone could tell I was on edge from the tightly controlled panic in my voice, and it made him nervous too because I have strong projecting empathy.

There’s a lot of voltage in this persona of mine. I project my emotions with enormous force. I am not sure why. Perhaps it has to do with a certain kind of sensitivity coupled with a very strong desire to communicate. Both my mother and I have it.

And I do my best to use it responsibly, as hard as that is. The temptation is to just blast out every emotion with my loudspeakers turned up to 11 and let the world do what it wants with that. Lord knows, were I a less scrupulous person, I could easily use it to manipulate people.

But I am a very honest and responsible person, so I try to keep it on its leash. I don’t really have a choice… the empathy that may be a part of it also makes me keenly aware of the consequences of my actions on the emotions of others and, in effect, what I do to them comes back on me instantly.

That is why I love making people happy. Their happiness bounces right back at me, and I radiate it back to them, and when it is going good, a whole self-reinforcing standing wave of happiness forms.

And everybody feels warm and good.

My therapist and I have been talking about this, in a way. He said I tend to put the needs of others ahead of my own sometimes, and I had to agree. And I think I know why.

It has to do with that empathy stuff I was just talking about. Making other people happy creates this rich emotional feedback that is highly addictive and very overwhelming at times, in a joyful way. Compared to it, simply making myself happy seems like a small and feeble thing.

Of course, that is entirely wrongheaded. Making myself happy is the most important thing of all, and living off the emotions of others like a passive emotional vampire is a good way to find your soul starving to death.

The real challenge for me is selfishness. That is to say, doing things that benefit me at the expense of others. Sounds like a noble thing, right? Never doing anything selfish?

But a certain amount of selfishness is necessary in life. Sometimes you really do have to look out for number one and trust that others can take care of themselves. You have to do what is right for you, and follow your own path.

This is tricky for me because of that empathy. A less sensitive person will be blissfully unaware of the little upsets and annoyances that their self-actualization cause. But I won’t be. I have to make the deliberate decision to hurt others, if that is what is needed, to get myself healthy.

And I am not talking about going to the other extreme and becoming a coldhearted prick. I am talking about tiny little things, like the fact that making changes in your life always means upsetting the view of you that others have. Or asking for something you really need despite knowing that the question will be unexpected from you and the person maybe initially be confused.

It’s just way too easy to use other people’s emotions as a reason not to change.

But sometimes, you have to do what is right for you, and if upsets people, tough.

I am determined to build a bridge to happiness.

And I will talk to all you nice people again tomorrow.