Time may change me?

I realized something today that surprised me a little bit. I was thinking on the rapid change I've endured over the past two years or so and wondered if I was rapidly changing myself. To be specific, I'm wondering if I've gone from wanting and wondering if I wanted to be a business person to actually becoming that business person.

If you take a little bit of time to think about it, the evidence is all there. The way I think is changed, my interactions with people seem different, and my opinion of my role in society has changed a lot too.

I know now that I'm a marketing guy. I see something and I immediately think about how it could be promoted, what it's strengths and weaknesses are, who would be compelled about it, and what the best way to communicate that thing is. Is this really such a drastic departure from my former method of thinking? Probably not. Even if some of the things I've done before were hard for other people to figure out they were usually always based on strategic gains.

My interactions with people are both more casual and formal at the same time, if that makes any sense. What I mean by that is that I tend to want to have a very measured conversation with people in which I know exactly what I want to get across and what I'm expecting out of them. I like that; it makes me more calculating. In addition, it seems like I'm far more interested in personal details of people than I used to be. I like that too. I genuinely do want to get to know most people I meet better so I'd like to think I make the effort to be nice within reason. I'm not about to let people walk all over me but if I find that they're pleasant to be around then I'm going to be more likely to want to interact with them again.

I think my position in just about everything has changed a lot too. I used to be a chemist - or at least an aspiring chemist - with some hobbies and the usual disposition of a chemist, if a little more social than what you might stereotypically think of. Slowly, and over the course of numerous life experiences and career choices, I've come to think of myself more as a business person in society instead of someone who wanted to go back to school and re-tool their skill set. I find that I feel more professional and even that my confidence is higher than it was when I was stuck in career limbo (although I'm a pretty confident person normally, anyway).

It's funny how little realizations can lead to a decently detailed self-analysis (put on the internet, of course, for anyone to see). I think that writing in this blog has actually helped me make a few of these changes as well. As a result, I'm very pleased that I have this outlet to express what otherwise might not be so appropriate to just randomly say in an unrelated conversation. (That would be too serious and I prefer to be a lot less serious when not on the internet)