20260312 [Article] A story about trying too hard

Hello everyone. This is Uri Hoshikawa.
I wonder if we can say that the days are starting to get a little warmer.

Today's theme: A story about trying too hard

Today, while this is a story about my own thought patterns... it is also a bit of a reflective and self-compassionate article about where I have been trying too hard.
It is quite difficult to notice your own thought patterns just by yourself, but

I think that sometimes those thought patterns end up making our daily lives painful.
So, I must have been trying too hard without even realizing it.Today is a story about that.

The reason I try hard to... [do something] in a short period of time

Having thought patterns is not necessarily a bad thing, but
perhaps because I become too serious, I sometimes get troubled and distressed by things,
so I go to counseling regularly to tune and adjust my thought patterns.
I write that so coolly, but in reality, while talking about my recent situation, I am digging deeper into my thoughts, facing cognitive distortions, and receiving different perspectives from my therapist.

At one point, while talking to my therapist,
there was a conversation about "being careful of people who try to close the distance quickly in a short period of time."I was also advised that "people who can truly become your friends will gradually get closer to you."
This struck a chord with me strangely. Haha.

After the counseling session ended, while I was going about my daily life and thinking about it,
I reached the conclusion that "maybe I have been trying incredibly hard to get results in my own way the very first time I meet someone?"

To put it bluntly, I try hard to get along in a short period of time.

The results I am referring to here are, in other words,
receiving praise from the other person, gratitude like "you helped me," or words that make it seem like the other person acknowledges me, such as "we can be good friends."

It seems I defined it as "getting results" when I received a lot of words from the other person that were easy to understand and praised me.

This is also... a classic thought pattern.
And by trying desperately hard at that, I must have convinced myself that I wasn't that much of an outsider in that community.

The results of trying hard to [do something] in a short period of time are not good

Unfortunately, the results of trying hard to get along in a short period of time were not exactly favorable.
In the first place, talking about whether the "results are favorable" in building human relationships feels strange, but
I have encountered many results that I can only describe that way.

That is to say, I would let my guard down quite easily with people who frequently used such words of praise, and after talking about various deep parts of myself in a short period of time, trouble would occur, leading to estrangement or disconnection, which would leave me deeply hurt and traumatized, a cycle I have repeated many times.
When you become friends in the blink of an eye and then cut off the relationship, it is quite a heavy burden, and
I have been troubled for many years by creating labels for myself, such as "I'm not good with this kind of person" or "I'm not good with that kind of person."
And even though I should have learned, trouble would happen again, and I would feel down and want to stop worrying.

There is no such thing as a safe lure

I am in my 30s now. Living up to this point, I have generally come to understand the characteristics of people I am not good with.
Now, I have come to think again that there is no need to force myself to jump into relationships with people I am not good with.With that in mind, I want to interact with various people without strain.

Also, among the people who praise me immediately, there are surely some who truly praise me from the bottom of their hearts, but
I realized that there might also be controlling people mixed in, thinking, "Hehe, if I get them to like me like this, I can get them to do what I want."
Also, it is not necessarily the case that the person themselves realizes they are being controlling.
They might be repeating behaviors that try to control others without realizing it, as a result of their own struggles with human relationships and a desire to feel secure.

Words like "we are best friends"
Constant promises
A lot of messages

All of these might be events or words that act like sweet lures saying, "This place is safe."
But I decided that I would interact with various people in a shallow way while being aware in my own way that there might be hidden motives behind them.

If I get along with someone while interacting shallowly, I will deepen it a little more.
If time passes and I think we get along a little better, I will get closer.
Conversely, if I think I can talk more this way than being too close, I will leave it at that.
I thought that being able to talk about various things to a certain extent with just the right distance is less of a burden for both parties.

Yes, safe lures are not something you can encounter so easily, and I realized just recently that they might require caution.

Summary - Realizing it is the first step

Until my 20s, I was very afraid of standing out within a community.
The 'people who try to get close too quickly' mentioned by my counselor might have seen me as an easy target, as I had been harboring such anxiety and fear for many years.
Now, I have come to accept in a way that there is no point in being so afraid of being different from others, and I am still trying to break free from the fear and anxiety of standing out. However, changing a mindset cultivated over more than 20 years is not that easy.

The fact that I was able to realize this and find clarity is, first of all, a big step forward—I thought as I praised myself and decided to take better care of myself.

My 30s are a trial and error in life like this, but I intend to live happily! Haha

Thank you for reading this far.
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