Hide in Plain Sight

Do you find that sometimes you just don't feel like being around people? Do you find it's maybe more often than you think should be normal. Well, we're going to talk today about something I came across on the internet, and we're going to delve into why you might just not want to be spending time around people and it's not usually what you think. There may be nothing wrong with you at all. We're going to do it this time on this episode of Wiss Thoughts. The following is a Terry Weis production. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Wise Thoughts. I'm Terry Weiss, and I am very excited that you've decided to join me today for the podcast. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to tell ye. Now. I'm happy here here folks. As always, I'm glad you've decided to come join us by our virtual campfire as we sit down and talk about in topics, issues, ideas, and things that are important to both me and to probably you as well. So sit back, relax, grab your favorite beverage, and get your place around our virtual campfire as we get ready for another episode of Wise Thoughts. And we're gonna get started with it coming up. So don't go anywhere. It's gonna be a good one on Wie Thoughts right after this, wearing his sunglasses indoors just because he wants to. Let's get back to the program. Here's your host, Terry Wie. Hey, everybody, welcome, Welcome to wis Thoughts. Thank you so much for joining me today. And remember, if you enjoy the program, would you leave us a positive rating and review on your favorite podcast provider please? I would really greatly appreciate it. And if you want to contact me real simple, you can go to my website Weiss Thoughts dot com. Just make sure you spell my name right wycee wise thoughts dot com. There you can listen to each and episode of the podcast, comment on shows, contact me through the website. That and so much more. It's all at wice thoughts dot com. And if you want to reach me on what is now called X, it's at Terry Weiss on X. At Terry Weiss on X. I used to say, and I know I'll probably say this for a few more episodes. I used to say you could tweet at me on Twitter if you so desire, But evidently Twitter is no more. It is now X as in extra grade, I guess or extra special, extra something by that way. So anyway, yeah, you can contact me on x I do have a YouTube channel as well. It's just look for Wice Thoughts on YouTube, okay, and we also have a Facebook page. Just look for Woice thoughts on Facebook, Facebook dot Com backslash Wice thoughts. I'm on Rumble, We're on Tumblr. Just I don't know, I'm all over the place. I can't even keep up with are all the places I am. You know, it's hard keeping up with all social media stuffs, and sometimes it can be a bit it can be a bit overwhelming and overbearing. But hey, I try my best. I try my best for you, the loyal listener. So those are all the places that y'all can get in touch with me, as promised too. By the way, First of all, how are you. I hope everybody out there is doing well. We are now officially rambling right into fall here in the year twenty twenty three, here in the continental United States of America, in the northeastern half of the United States. From wenst the program cometh to you, and I am again happy you're here and decided to join me today for another episode of Wice Thoughts. I'm glad you're here. I really am. Seriously, some people might not be happy when you listen to their podcast. I am. And if you want to email me, it's mail m ail mail atwice thoughts dot com. I welcome any and all feedback, Okay, positive, negative, neutral, what have you. So there we go. We got all that, We got all that ironed out. Great, we got all that wonderful things ironed out. So as we were talking about a little bit in the teaser and the opener, you know, there's there's a lot of talk about mental health lately here in the United States, especially around the world, but especially in the United States. But your mental health, your mental well being. I talk a lot about it on this program, about things you can do to better yourself, you know, sharing some of my experiences, some of my victories and failures with you. I that's fine. I mean, don't know, I don't mind doing that. I mean, I don't you know. I'm not that much of a private person. There's certain things that I won't share, obviously with the whole world, in the general public. But you know, there's things I don't mind sharing. Some other people may not enjoying a joy rather sharing these things. Man, I gotta go my mouth working today. Toy Boat, toy Boat. Toy boat may not enjoy sharing certain aspects of their life with you and what have you. I don't mind. I figure it makes for a great conversation. It makes way for us to communicate back and forth. And hey, I look at it this way. If I can help somebody out there, or if somebody can relate to one of the stories I'm telling you or some of the things I'm discussing on this podcast, and if it affects you get you to take action, great, you know, if it helps you out in anyway, I'm great. Then I'm happy for you, and I'm happy I was able to assist in some way, so that's good. Or if it gives you a moment of pause to say I'm definitely not going to do that, well that's good too. So if you get something out of it that's wonderful, or if it's just kind of a few minutes to mindlessly tune out the world and take a chill break, that's good as well. So I mean, you know, it's a win win win all the way around. I feel, and I'm just looking at how dusty the studio is here. I gotta, I gotta get to get in here and clean this. Some things are dusty, not good for electronic equipment anyway, as I squirrel go off that way. As we were talking about, you know, there's a lot of emphasis lately in the world about you know, mental health and you know, socializing, and you know, some people have been deemed antisocial. Some people have been deemed you know, recluses. There's things like social anxiety disorder and you know, things of that nature, SAD seasonal effective disorder where sometimes people just don't want to associate with people now a lot of times, and I go through some of this, so you know, I'm going to share this with you on this episode obviously of the podcast today. Sometimes people just don't want to associate with people and don't want to you know, they work all week or what have you, and they say, you know what, I'm done. I've had enough and I just don't want to be around anybody. I want to do my own thing, man, And that's fine, that's cool. Some people develop a fear of social situations, hence social anxiety disorder or disorders. There's different types that I've I've found out and I am aware of and some people get such a fear of leaving their home and the safety know the their home. They develop something called a goophobia, which is basically fear of leaving the house that you're And it's a real thing. I mean, I know some people like the joke about it and that, but it is or I mean, it is a real thing. I have suffered at times in my life from different severities of agoraphobia, where you know, you get these physical symptoms. You actually get these physical symptoms when you leave your house and you start second guessing. Your mind place tricks on you and your body place tricks on you your adrenaline and cortisol and things like that. And I try to think of myself, I believe as a social person. I mean, but there are times when I don't want to go anywhere, I don't want to do things for periods of time. I don't know if it's a form of depression or what have you, but there's there's times when I want to be out there with with you know, small groups of people, a couple of friends, large groups of people want to go out concert restaurants do and there's times that I would just rather sit in my house and say, ah, you know, but I want to I want to share something with you. I came across on the internet some audio here. Okay, it was from a web channel called top think, so we're giving them full credit. We're using some of their audio top Think. This was under a video they had titled twelve reasons why you don't like being around people and number three I'm going to play for you here. Just have a listen to this free toxic pack mentality. The real reason that you don't like being around people may have nothing to do with your social preferences. In other words, you may have developed solitary habits because you're hanging out with the wrong people. For example, certain friend groups can become toxic and depressive, developing what's known as a toxic pack mentality. These oppressive groups force people to conform to group friendly ideas and penalize anyone who thinks differently. Many people become trapped in toxic packs for ye years, unwilling or unable to break free. If you have a toxic friend group, it may be time to see who else is out there. The wrong friends can heavily influence our social preferences and just leave us wanting for meaningful connections. You may think you don't like being around people, but the truth is you don't like being around them. There you go, So there you go. That was that was I found that rather interesting that that particular thing, the toxic element of it, and it really got me thinking. And it got me thinking that in today's world where we're so highly politicized, okay, where everything is highly politicized, and where a lot of us are going into our tribes, and I've been guilty of it as well. You know, we want to we want like minded people to think like we do. We want to be around like minded people and like like the narrator there and that that snippet of audio I was saying I'm playing for you stated, you know it just it affects us adversely because we we interpret it, or we ingest being around that person or group of people or what have you, as being toxic. And believe me, my friends, coming from a toxic work environment, which I discussed a lot on the last episode, our Labor Day episode, you might want to listen to that one the episode before this one. Here I came out of a really hostile, toxic retaliatory work environment my previous job experience. And I'm sorry if you hear the cheer creaking sorry in the background, apologize for that. But you know, and I know what those feelings are like being in a toxic environment, you know, And I thought about this now, I you know, under the auspices of full disclosure, I must state that I really don't have any toxic friends that I interpret as being toxic. Okay, I don't interpret them as being toxic people and what have you, So I can't say this really directly affects me. However, the reason I wanted to bring it to the forefront on the podcast today is that I think maybe a lot of us, in our eagerness for acceptance and social interaction and that feeling of community and belonging, are possibly think about it. You may be possibly torturing yourself under the guise of hanging around with, like the narrator stated, the wrong group of people just for that feeling of acceptance. And maybe you've been hanging around with the wrong group of people for weeks, months, or years, I mean even years. Think about that. So that's something you might want to you know, ruminate on, maybe meditate on, you know, give it some serious introspective thought, as I like to use that phrase, and saying, hey, am I really hanging around the right people? You know? Is these are these relationships and I would I would even go as far as to transpose this over into your work environment, people you hang around with at work or even the job you're in. I mean, from this point on, folks, I am an advocate for the best possible outcome for you for a workplace. I mean, I'm going to be that again. That previous very poor experience, and I don't want to you know, clamor on about that, but the the previous work experience I had at a company that I was hoping to retire from that I had spent well over five five almost six years of my life and I was hoping to retire from. Something had to give. And I was very glad when the company was bought out. And similarly that me, along with about eighty or so eighty plus percent of the organization weren't retained and they let us go. I was glad to be rid of that because I was actively seeking other employment and you know, obviously trying to find the right opportunity and fit. But anyway, I don't want to go over all that. Just listen to the previous episode, the Labor Day Special one as I talk about toxic work environments in that but taking this little snippet of audio referring back to this again on this episode of wife Thoughts and why maybe you don't want to socialize as much as you know with others and want more you time or me time, as they say, is because you might be in a toxic work environment, whether it's at your job or people are hanging around with at the job. And then even maybe if that's not the case, again, maybe it is people you're hanging around with afterwork that you're just not getting fulfilling, a fulfilling interaction that satisfies that need for social you know, social acceptance, a social comfortability, dare I say, and things of that nature. So maybe that's something you know, you might want to contemplate and again do some deep introspective thought and reflection on. You know, I'm not trying to sound like a psychologist. I have no degree, i have no formal training. I've just given you what I've dealt with, what I've experienced in my life. Things that have happened to me. And again, like I stated, if this man, if this can help somebody, Oh man, I hope, I hope it can. I hope you can either learn from my successes or from mostly from my failures, so you don't have to go down those those rabbit holes like I have done in the past, and you know, waste any precious time on this beautiful planet that we all live on, you know, in this beautiful reality that we're in right now. Okay, in this dimension, what have you, whatever your beliefs are. But that being said, you know, maybe that's one of the reasons. And you know, especially with today's highly charged political environment, social environment, you know, you've got all these social justice warriors that are just looking to be offended out there. And I've had conversations. Actually it's one of the reasons again I wanted to to concentrate on this podcast about about this issue. I've had conversations with other people, and I have some people in my family and extended family that can be toxic, and I've had conversations with people that have said, you know, I stopped talking and dare I say, dare I say? Have gone so far as to say, I've stopped talking to my brother because he's just one side of the political spectrum and all it is a toxic and they always have to bring it up and we can talk. I'd rather we don't agree politically or social issues. I can't talk with my sister anymore because she has this total belief that is totally one hundred and eighty degrees from mine. And I've you know, and maybe you, as a sibling or a friend or what have you have tried to explain to that person. Listen, let's just not bring this up. You know, there used to be foo pause in the workplace, and you know, and things like that. You didn't bring up religion, and you didn't bring up politics. Well, nowadays in the workplace, everything's brought up. Everything's a social justice issue, things a political issue. In companies and these big corporations, it seems like, and you've got to either step in line and march to their drum politically, and what they want you to know, all this retraining and all this social justice warrior training horseshit. Okay, as far as I'm concerned, just be a decent person, because you know what a lot of the things you probably are sticking in a lot of people's faces and forcing down their throats and just beating them overhead with They probably care about a lot of the same, if not the same issues, and they'll do the right thing. But when you just sit there and just you know, slam it in their face every minute of every day and tell them what pieces of garbage they are if they don't care, and politically wave a flag around saying I care about this, and I care about that, and I care about this and all sides, all sides, mind you, I just think it gets exhausting, It gets exasperating, and it gets infuriating. So think about that in terms of toxicity and why you might not want to hang around with some of those people from work, or you might be dealing with it day of work and you just you're on guard in a social situation and you don't want to deal with that kind of bullshit. When you get out of work, you just want, you know what, I want pace and quiet, man. I just want to go home, crack open a beer, grab a glass of wine, whatever, curl up with a good book, go and go play some music, do whatever. You don't want to be bothered with constantly being on call or you know, on the stage, having to account for every utterance or opinion you may have, or every every joke you tell, or you know, every idea that floats in your head. That's somebody's sitting there with a little social justice workbook scribbling down or a political workbook scribbling down your answers. I mean, it's all a bunch of horseshit. It's all bullshit, horseshit, whatever kind of shit. It's a bunch of shit. How's that? I don't trying not to use pro bed words, but it just it gets in't like I said, it gets an exhausting, exact, exasperating and infuriating. And I'm sure a lot of you feel the same way. And if you do comment, please comment on this podcast. Common in the posts on x or on Facebook about this episode. Comment, you know, email me, let me know what you think about it. By the way, someone had written emailed me and said, hey, you know, Terry, you say that you're you know, you're all over the place. What if I wanted to listen to your podcast on YouTube, look for the channel Purple Pit Studios on YouTube, and then just look for wice thoughts under that I forgot to mention that last time someone had emailed me. So just go to YouTube dot com if you want to listen to the audio portion of the podcast. There is no video, but I'm just saying, listen to the audio on YouTube. There it's a Purple Pit Studios on YouTube. I don't put it on my regular YouTube channel because I'd like to keep that as open for you know, funny videos and light introspective stuff, product reviews, music type lessons and what have you. You know, I try not to get too serious on that channel because yeah, it can't be serious all the time with things anyhow. But yeah, that that could be a reason why that you're not, you know, socially gung ho as it were, to hang out with a lot of people. A lot of people just like to sit in their house. Now. The other thing, too, maybe a reason why you don't like or want to interact with people is that the world itself socially is evolving to new different parameters. I've noticed this over the past decade with the increase of social media, you know, things like Instagram, Twitter, now x, Facebook and rumble and truth social and tick. To all these things, people seem a lot more comfortable and come out of the shell, some in good ways, some and not so good ways. On social media, you know you've heard the term, I'm sure keyboard warriors. You know, there's social justice keyboard warriors that you know, trying antagonize you. And of course then there's AI bots out there trying to whip us all up against each other and stir the pot as well so they can get more views on a post and and and drawing more eyes so that way they get more advertising or clicks or you know, I'm sure you've heard the term clickbait stuff like that. So that being said, you know, the the evolution of the world socially has maybe pulled us back a little bit, you know, and then we had the whole you know, virus thing they're back in twenty twenty that we were separated and locked down basically around the world. That's why you might I'm gonna say, there's a high probability if they ever tried that stuff again, it's it's not going to happen. People are not going to comply, I for one, won't, you know, I mean, just based on information, and again this is only a personal opinion. You do what's best for you, but I won't be doing donning they you know the face dipers or you know, locking down and you know living and again my opinion, living like a scared rabbit in a hole. You gotta live your life, man, uh, you know, I mean, they had one shot at whatever, and a lot of it, in my opinion, turned out to be inaccurate, and so that's not going to happen. But again, I'm sure socially that affected a lot of people. I still and I'm sure maybe you have as well, have heard stories about people that have just now in the year twenty twenty three, after three years, some people that are so traumatized or fearful coming out of their houses finally now, I mean, and that's that's that's a sad state of affairs. I really feel sorry for those individuals, you know, I know, I understand under the auspices of fairness that if you have some kind of severe autoimmune disease and things like that, oh, I get it. I mean, I'm not heartless. I'm not a total zealot that I'm like, oh you got a doughty. I'm not. I'm not like that. But I'm talking about your average everyday people. Some people that have just locked themselves away and their mental health has declined to the point, you know, I mean it's it's a shame. Really, it's a shame. But as I always say on this program, I'm an advocate of freedom. Okay, you are free to do what whatever floats your boat. As they say, whatever you know puts a spring in your step, as long as you are not hurting others or imposing your will on others for in other words, I e. Forcing them okay, And I think probably the third thing I don't want to see it hurt yourself in any way other than that. Man, you do you you'll be you cool man right on, you know. But you know, these these these are some factors of why why socially you may just decide to not really associate with people. Well, that's about all the time we got for today. You're listening to the program today. I truly appreciate each and every one of you out there, and remember to see a change in the world, you have to be the change in the world you want to see. It all starts with you, a person looking back at you in the mirror every morning. Remember to be kind to yourself, be kind to others. If you want to tweet at me on Twitter, it's at Terry Weiss. Stop by the website Wise thoughts dot com just to make sure you spell my name right. Wysee White Thoughts dot com, and hey, leave us a positive rating and review on your favorite podcast provider. Won't you tell your friends, tell your family, tell your pets about White Thoughts and I look forward to gathering yet again around the virtual campfire with you real soon. Take care. I was Transered, I was treasure. I was Transered.