are these my people?

seeking discomfort to further define your identity

We've all been there: that moment when you make an introduction or tell a story, and you know it didn't land the way you intended. The silence feels heavy, and your mind races through familiar justifications:

• "Maybe these people are just assholes."

• “Everyone should be curious about others, regardless of their interests."

• "I should've mentioned that cool thing I did that one time, or referenced someone they might get along with."

When a story falls flat within a social circle, I've learned to examine the situation through two distinct lenses:

1. The Delivery Lens: “Wow, the story I told kind of sucks. Something about the words I used, the tone I spoke with or my energy level did not hit and I need to figure out how to make it resonate in the future.”

2. The Audience Lens: “Okay, in this particular setting, and at this point in time, these are not my people and they won’t generally enjoy what I have to say. I should go find other people where my stories/words will resonate.”

Was it a problem with how I presented myself, or were these just not “my people”?

I think it’s easier to answer both questions when you are able to isolate one from the other. Once you’ve chosen people you know you get along with, it’s easier to then recognize and pattern match what types of stories will illicit certain types of reactions.

A friend in San Francisco once told me that he made the decision on where to live when he realized that the same words he spoke which brought him admiration in San Francisco brought him funny looks in other cities like New York. This brings me to the greater point on identity - recognizing where in your life you’d like to welcome discomfort is a great way to get closer to a strong sense of identity.

This struggle between code-switching speech patterns and being a theoretical authentic self leads to this fundamental question I keep revisiting in my twenties:

How do we balance exploration and exploitation in our social and professional lives?

Exploration for me means testing new waters - meeting diverse people, trying different communication styles, and expanding my comfort zone. Exploitation involves doubling down on what works - deepening connections with "our people" and refining our proven approaches.

My father offered the conventional wisdom: maximize optionality, get along with everyone, keep all doors open. While this advice seems sound, it can lead to a kind of social paralysis. Spreading yourself too thin across different social groups often results in superficial connections - being everywhere but belonging nowhere. It's the equivalent of RSVPing to every event but never staying long enough to make meaningful connections.

My answer to this question is to consistently create. To engage in the act of creation is to define yourself and importantly, to make choices. Most recently, when redesigning my personal website, I had to find the right balance between exploration and commitment. The project began as a simple portfolio update but evolved into something more profound: an exercise in identity curation.

The engineering aspects - building from raw HTML, CSS, and JavaScript - were straightforward. The real challenge lay in making deliberate choices about self-presentation. Each decision became a small act of identity formation:

- Which projects should I highlight?

- What tone should my writing strike?

- How should the design reflect my personality?

- What story do I want to tell about myself?

These choices weren't just about web design - they were about embracing discomfort. Each decision meant closing doors to alternative presentations of self, but through the string of decisions, I came to the conclusion — identity isn't about finding some pre-existing "true self." Instead, it emerges from this web of choices, where each decision adds another thread to the pattern of who we are.

While the weight of these decisions varies - choosing a font color definitely matters less than choosing a career path - collectively, they form the backbone of our identity. You can have the consistency to make these choices and create patterns that others see as “you,” while having the courage to make new choices to allow for growth and evolution.

Understanding this relationship between discomfort, choice, and identity has transformed how I approach social interactions. When a story doesn't land or a joke falls flat, I see it as information about identity alignment - helping me understand where and with whom I can be most authentically myself.

This doesn't mean avoiding all situations where we don't naturally fit. Rather, it means being intentional about where we choose to adapt and where we choose to stand firm. The discomfort we feel in social situations isn't just noise to be eliminated - it's a signal helping us navigate the continuous process of becoming ourselves.