There are times where I find myself feeling as though I don’t fit in. It’s not because I’m a geek or hard to like or anything of that sort, it’s really because I don’t feel like I have a lot in common with the people I run into on a daily basis.

I’m surrounded by people that are having multiple children at an early age, complaining that they are stuck in their situations, and a lot of them suffer from a complete lack of motivation to be anything other than average. Not too long ago I used to think like that as well. I was just letting life pass right by me and I honestly didn’t even care about catching up. I’m not quite sure what changed inside of me to make my mindset shift and cause me to aspire to achieve nothing but excellence, but I’m glad that it did. That is my dilemma though, because the path towards success is not always a glamorous or friend-filled journey.

What I would love, is to have a strong group of like-minded people that I can hang out with and share ideas or trade success stories with. Or people that would be beneficial to just simply build a network with. What I keep finding, however, is that there are more people that are comfortable and lack motivation than there are individuals that are truly driven to excel. There was a time in my life where I wouldn’t mind this fact and I would just settle for whatever friends I could make at the time. Nowadays, however, I am in a completely different place mentally and that simply doesn’t work for me anymore.

Honestly speaking, I think that some people confuse my desire to succeed with cockiness or even arrogance. Admittedly, I do enjoy performing well in my field and excelling in the activities that I choose to participate in, but I never let it go to my head. But whenever I win awards or get complimented for doing well, other people see me as “Mr. Perfect” or think I’m brown-nosing or showing off when that is nowhere on my agenda of things to do (I only say this because I’ve actually heard people say it) . It doesn’t bother me at all, I just don’t understand the purpose. Why be threatened by someone that is trying to succeed in the same job that you’re doing? What happened to the days of healthy competition within the workplace? When I was going through training, I looked at the people who were currently excelling in my job and I told myself “I want to be like better than that guy”. There are still people that are much better than I am, but it doesn’t bother me because I know I’ll be right up there with them – soon.

I guess the saying, “People want to see you do well but only as long as you aren’t doing better than them”, is actually quite true. Maybe that’s why I don’t really do so well with others? Well, that and the fact that I’m slightly introverted. I think my wife has the same problem, but that’s what makes us perfect for each other. We compete with each other and everybody else, so we can’t help but be stand outs since no one else wants to play ‘Lets be the best’ with us.

*deep sigh*
Oh well.