I used to get mad when people didn't know things I thought of as basic knowledge or notice things I thought of as obvious, and thought that expressing that would make them remember or pay more attention as well as being personally satisfying. Expressing that as anger got me in trouble a few times and also didn't get them to notice related but non-identical things, so I tried different reactions before settling on sounding kind and concerned and trying to explain the problem. This slightly raised the likelyhood of most people doing better next time, and eventually got me a useful reputation of being kind which was useful.

I'd say I've been maintaining that reaction as a deliberate mask a majority of the time for the last ~8 years. I never bothered trying to change my internal reaction, but I acted (in the sense of an actor on a stage) the way that got me the best results until it became an automatic reflex. Now I find when this happens my thoughts don't flow "What an idiot, crap can't say that out loud, right okay fake being a kind person, what would a kind person say?" They flow "Hrm, that wasn't what I wish they'd done. I wonder what I can do to make this less likely to happen again, possibly by making them feel good about doing what I'd rather they'd done instead?" I don't think I could pinpoint the moment things changed over, but it's very different when I pay attention to it.

I wrote paragraphs three to nine ("I think I might have wanted. . ." through "What do I want to be?" partially because explaining what I think now is made easier by explaining what I thought then and what changed, largely because I feel very strange responding to a call for heroes and was more comfortable responding with the caveat that I am a highly noncentral example, and lastely because it's the kind of thing I wish someone else had written and I had read when I was younger. It may be that this section could have been written better- I'm working without an editor here as none of this would make sense to the people I'd usually ask- but I am glad to have written it.

Let me know if you decide to take exceptional action, and in what domain you decide to apply yourself. Being inspiring is a source of warm fuzzies, and it's possible we could help each other.