hard coded?

ever wonder why you behave the way you do? and why others behave differently given the same stimuli? ok that sounds geeky. give the same influences, situations, etc. when we are kids...babies even, they say you can discern the different personalities already. my baby bro for instance...has always been a little mischevious and has always gone against the norm. has since childhood. the way he behaves and the way he handles situations have always been the same. of course he has matured since then and things are not exactly the same. however...his reactions and his overall personality have not changed much at all.

me however, i am not sure i've always been the same. deep down...yes i have similarities. but if you met me pre college, i was very much different. quiet in class, hung out with only close friends and didn't talk to many people. not really the extrovert. but i had a lot of regrets in HS. there were a lot of things that i wished i had done but was too afraid to try. so i made a choice to change. be more outgoing, be unafraid of making new friends, be more assertive. for the most part i think i've been successful. of course there are still things i feel i need to work on. i need to have stronger will power at times and i need to learn to limit the things i get involved with.

but what really shapes who we are? was i always this person and my experiences in childhood made me shy until i learned to overcome them? when i was little i had very bad rashes all over my body. my parents had a very hard time figuring out what the cause was. this made me very selfconscious because little kids love to find things to make fun of. did this experience make me into an extremely shy person? if i told anyone i was a shy person now, they would laugh at me. if anything, i'm the antithesis of shy now. but what changed? and when exactly? i have no idea. it was not as if there was one defining experience that changed my whole outlook on life.

i'm asking these questions because i want to help my friend make a change. she has had some friends betray her friendship at a young age. since then at various times of her life, she's had to deal with people who have turned against her. therefore, and very rightly so, she has issues trusting people. however to a certain extent, you have to trust others before they trust you. for example, people don't generally open up their lives to you until they see you are opening up to them. so what comes first, the chicken or the egg? actually, she knows that there are things she needs to change. and yet it seems that this year has been a downward spiral for her. friends have talked to her about her issues. sometimes it seems that the situations she finds herself in can somehow be traced to her lack of trust in people. for example she always had issues with thinking her boyfriends were cheating on her. she was cheated on in the past. but if you never trust someone, you never open your heart in the first place. and if you never open your heart, how can you really be close to someone? how can they be close to u? this is not to say that it's appropriate to spill your guts on a first day. maybe that is the issue? timing? reading people? she tends to read people wrongly i think. how do you learn that? how do you relearn that?

why do some people make friends so easily and for others, it's such a task? is it a warm smile? a look? an invite to a party that makes it easier because you know friends in common? i've been on both sides. it's been hard and it's been easy. when it was hard, i was afraid. scared people would judge me. when it was easy, i didn't really give a shit what people thought. strange how that works huh? when you care, it's the hardest.

i want her to feel free of this burden she creates for herself. i want her to enjoy life and not let things eat her up inside. how do i help her do that? words don't seem to be helping...

a penny for your thoughts.