Awkwardness is natural when you don’t fit into the choreography of the consensus.
Meet awkwardness with mindfulness; keep your sense of humor but do not conform.
Be at ease amidst discomfort. You’re good.
Therein can be found a lovely balance between charming and subversive.
“Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
— Buddha
"When you become aware of silence, immediately there is that state of inner still alertness." - Eckhart Tolle
"Being rude is easy. It does not take any effort and is a sign of weakness and insecurity. Kindness shows great self-discipline and strong self-esteem. Being kind is not always easy when dealing with rude people. Kindness is a sign of a person who has done a lot of personal work and has come to a great self-understanding and wisdom. Choose to be kind over being right, and you’ll be right every time because kindness is a sign of strength." U.N. Owen.
Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.” Eckhart Tolle
So therefore, if you understand perfectly clearly that you can’t do anything to find that very, very important thing—God, Enlightenment, Nirvāṇa, whatever—then what? Well, I find—you know—it’s so stupid, because even if I tell myself, “Well, there’s nothing I can do about it.” Why did I say that? You see? why did I say that? Why did I go out of my way to tell myself there’s nothing I can do about it? Because in the back of my mind there’s a funny little feeling that if I did tell myself that, something different would happen. See?
Alright, so even that doesn’t work. Nothing works. Now, when absolutely nothing works, where are you? Well, here we are—I mean, there’s a feeling of something going on. The world doesn’t stop dead when there’s nothing you can do. There’s something happening. Now, just there: that’s what I’m talking about. There’s the happening. When you are not doing anything about it, you’re not not doing anything about it; you just can’t help it, it goes on despite anything you think or worry about, or whatever. Now there is the point. Right there.
~Alan Watts