You and your imagination are in charge of your response. It's yours.

I often get anxious. What is anxiety? Mostly it is worrying about a future, unknown event. My husband is not home from his business trip when I expect him? "What if my husband's plane crashed?" I think. Could happen. But so could, "I bet he stopped to buy me a present!" You protest, "That's highly unlikely!" but so is the plane having crashed! We know it is probably not either one but if you have to go "there" why not go where it is sunny and wistful instead of where it is cold and rainy? Who knows, you joke with your husband later, "I was hoping you were late because you stopped to buy me a present" (and give a cute pout :-) and maybe next time, he does!

You are not particularly interested in world hunger and its resolution. It has nothing to do with Bob!

What would you find interesting? Go do/work on that. I got a college degree at 21, exactly as "expected". Ho hum. I was raised to expect that so that it is an achievement, I was "cheated" by my parents/background of any sort of celebration of getting a degree that most people (in my era) did not get. I got my first degree in 1972. However, I am really impressed with my great grandmother, she got TWO bachelors degrees, one in 1881 and another in 1882! Why is her degree of more "worth" than mine to me?

What do you want? I got braces on my teeth when I was 29/30 and I had to cash in my 401K to afford them. I paid the $2000 myself back in the day when I did not make much money and it was difficult, etc. I am very proud of that. I cared enough about myself and my health and I figured out how to "get" those braces myself, not borrow from my parents or complain that they "should" have paid for them since I probably should have had them as a teenager, etc. I had a 401K to cash in! Hey, look at me trying to be fiscally responsible

Most of my self-concept is based on traits in myself that I enjoy my development of. I have a really good sense of humor, for example and enjoy that. Like intelligence and sense of direction, I probably inherited a pretty good sense of humor but how it is "used" or IF it is used is all "me". I am often able to help others with my sense of humor, my sense of self. I have learned/taught myself and am relaxed about my "mistakes", my efforts that don't quite work out the way I expect? My husband once made a pointed, teasing remark about me and I added to it and my stepson was just amazed that I would "admit" to having that "flaw." My mistakes are not "Me", they are just evidence of my education, I'm in there learning and I have yet to get very many 100% on tests, all the time? Sure, looking back some mistakes are comical, now that I know better?

I still remember 1st grade and how on the first day the teacher wrote something up on the board and we were to copy it down the best we could. She then collected the papers. None of us knew how to write yet, much less read (this was back in the 1950s :-) so she told us what it said and we went on to being first graders and learning what one learns in first grade. The last day of class, the teacher wrote the exact same thing on the board and had us copy it. We did not remember that first day's exercise at first, not until she handed back the papers she had collected then so we could see how much we had improved. I think self-concept is like that.

We do not "know" when we start out that we are "stupid" and "worthless" and we do not get any real evidence of that, just our parent's and care giver's opinions and they are not here for "us" they are here for themselves. I inherited intelligence, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt I cannot be "stupid" so when my step mother called me "stupid" one time too many when I was 23, I decided I did not like that, my self concept was not going to take that insult anymore. My stepmother was often physically abusive and I remember thinking, at 23, that I did not care if she killed me (??!!!) I was not going to stay there and take it and I turned and went up to my room, her calling after me to come back (why she would kill me, I wasn't doing as she commanded). All kinds of good things came from that one act of mine. I learned that my stepmother had not known/realized/wanted to hurt my feelings (she was crying more than I was), never mind my mistaken impression she might kill me Of course, now you could call me "stupid" and I would just look at you funny, not understand what you were saying! There is no conflict anymore within me as to whether or not I am stupid or "deserve" to be called stupid, etc.

It takes a lot of thinking and hard work to figure out what one's genuine self knowledge/concept is in the first place and then to improve on that. Other people's comments down through the years are not "us" and may not even be what we think which will be what one has to figure out and wrestle with.

Last but not least, you say you are not very likable, intelligent, or exciting. You can try to become those things if you want and that you are trying is worthy of support? You are what you are. That knowledge alone is enough for, "Okay, here I am, world!"