Where I live it's not easy to see a therapist, and they are not included in the insurance. I tried to read books about how to overcome social anxiety, and other books on how to connect with people and make friends, but nothing worked. There are many factors that we don't have control over, and influence our lives. If we reset the clock and the same exact conditions for everyone, most likely most people will make the same choices again. I used this argument to say that what we do now is not a choice. In science there is something called the optimistic bias. People are biased to be optimistic, and to see the reality better than it is. Unfortunately, I don't have this bias, it seems. I agree about the self-fulfilling prophecy, but again, being hopeful or not is not a choice. If you were hopeful because you have a bias, and you made choices based on it, then your life would be different than if you didn't have that bias.