Which decision did I take? What could be so important to change my life so drastically?
Well, I changed my avatar to this one:
It shows a lot of confidence, happiness and...other things, doesn't it?
It was not as easy as you may think. It hurted as if I were undergoing a surgery. Googling, saving the image, uploading it...my carpal tunnel gave me horrible aches. But it did not stop me.
Not many people talked to me after that. My notes were almost empty, nobody was commenting on my threads. Fortunately they just ignored me, and nobody attacked me because of "wanting to change what cannot be changed" They were clearly afraid of my new self, but they were not aggressive.
And my ostracism finally ended. I received a friend request from a total stranger! I was amazed. But then there were two, three...and it reached six! I can only thank those people, none of which I had ever talked to before, for being so understanding with me in a moment of distress.
But then I got bored and went back to Yellen, Draghi and CTRL+P.
)))))))))))))))))
This is just another piece on how the Internet imitates life; but in this case I will have to keep all my pessimism and cynism away from this thread in order not to spoil the story of some of the most sympathetic and understanding people one can meet while being spied by the NSA.
Several months ago, I was shy and introverted, as it could easily be deduced from my the picture I used as my avatar back then:
Unwilling to show my real feelings, afraid of what others might say about my true self. I was simply not a happy human being. However, one day, I said to myself: "Man up. You're not going anywhere with that attitude". So I took a crucial decision, one that changed my life. I knew I could be mocked and discriminated, and that many of my friends would either abandon me or ignore my existence. But I took the risk. And in the long run, it taught me a lot. It taught me that total strangers can make the world a better place for you. It made me believe in the innate goodness of humankind again. And that lead to a book by Rousseau. But I found him really boring.