At what age can a person really change? At what point in your life do you stop developing and you just are what you are? Is it never? Is it after you graduate college? When you turn 30? Behaviorally, when do people cease becoming a person and you just ARE a person?

I remember sometime late in high school or maybe it was early in college, someone told me or I read somewhere, or whatever, I came to the realization that people with low self-esteem didn't look up when they walked. Animals too, like dogs who were not confident drooped their heads down low most of the time as did humans. So being the fatty that I was with no self-esteem I made it a point to walk with my head up as much as possible. Not in that snooty way where I have to lower my glasses to grandma status on the bridge of my nose to see people, but just to where I look up while I'm walking. So tonight coming out of the gym I caught myself staring at the ground and I looked up. But I realized that by holding my head up high while walking was hardly a solution to the bigger problem. Treating the symptoms isn't actually treating the disease. It was like rearranging deck-chairs on the Titanic. I was, or better yet, I am, missing the big fucking picture.

Will I ever be able to be confident? Is it really about just taking the leap and jumping in? Like the more you do it the easier it gets? Do you really just act more confident and eventually you become it? Or do you work towards being the person you envision yourself to be and once you get there you'll be confident because you're confident in what you've made yourself into? Someone I know frequently says that you have to accept people for who they are and you can't try to change them. What if I want to change myself? Can I even do it? Is it because I lack the willpower? Or is it because I am who I am and I should just accept it? It seems rather disheartening if its true that we cannot change. So I refuse to believe that. But to illustrate the extent of my many issues:

Today at the gym I was looking at myself in the mirror, vain, I know, but I realized that I actually believe myself to be better looking when I'm working out. Like if I look at myself in the mirror at home before I leave my house or before I start work, sometimes I hate the way I look but when I'm at the gym, it doesn't matter how my hair looks or what clothes I'm wearing, I feel like I look better. And its not just my arms or my body, which may look slightly different because my muscles are in use (hopefully) at the gym, but I literally look at my face and see a better looking person. Its completely mental!

I think I need a 12-Step program for my life. Hello, My name is Jonathan Kuo and I've got serious self-esteem issues.

Also, I'm very very very excited about next Thursday night. I really want to read Harry Potter so badly, but at the same time I'm nervous too. But I think about a gajillion other people can relate. Then there is this little fear I have that at the release "party" that someone with friends in England or the east coast (where the book will be released first) will just drive by and yell out what happens. That would be the worst! It might be the first time a group of children got together to murder someone. Nobody is that mean, right?

Brett Dennen - Ain't No Reason