Pigeonholed

It's frustrating; perhaps one of the most loathsome questions someone can ask me (and in my opinion ask anybody) is, "What's with you?". If it's a sunny day, and I just want to run around outside, if I have energy and I'm in a half decent mood (a fairly uncommon event) and it's showing, one simple way to ensure I stop feeling good is to ask me, "What's with you?". For me, it is as if the person asked me, "Why are you acting weird? Why don't you just go back to being yourself?"

At that point, I won't lose the energy, but I will lose the sense of freedom I had just been experiencing, and that combination only leaves room for active anger.

The problem here is it feels like no one wants you to be anything except the person they believe you to be; if you are not matching the profile they have constructed of you in their minds, there's a problem, and that is a problem. I understand people being upset with a man who is known for being gentle and calm then suddenly demonstrates violent behavior. I have no qualms with that. The problem is how difficult this pigeonholing effect makes it to change your behavior for the better.

I don't like the person I am. Every day I want to be someone else. Now, even though I make attempts to be something different, something better, playing 21 questions every time I do something out of character does not help. The fact that the people grilling me have no idea who I am does not make the situation any better. The fact of the matter is, I am not the person they've built me up to be, however their is a facade I've found easy to maintain. Neither the person I am, nor the person I pretend to be is someone I want to be. Many actors mix part of their own person in with the character they play; I do this as well, hence me pretending to be someone I don't want to be.

I'm getting off track; the point is this: let people do what they want to do and be who they want to be. Questioning the motives behind good behavior hardly facilitates positive change. If anything, the questions corrupt it. When someone starts applying themselves at school or at work, don't ask them, "since when were you so ambitious?" If you see someone start volunteering at a soup kitchen, don't ask them, "since when did you care about other people?" They don't need to be reminded they are changing, they already know. It's not unreasonable to be self-conscious about it. I feel in many situations, if the person changing were to respond honestly, he or she would say something along the lines of, "I don't like the person I am, and I'm trying to change it." That's not a message everyone wants to preach to the world.

As for being on the receiving end, now I usually just respond with a quizzical look and tell the person, "This is just what I want to do. What's it to you anyways?" At this point they'll usually get slightly offended, believing me to be disproportionately mad at their seemingly innocent inquiry, and walk away. Granted I may be angrier than the situation justifies, but I really do hate that question and the discouraging, reproving society it represents.

PS: I'm not saying people actively discourage each other from change, but we hardly promote it as much as we ought to.