I'm so vain, I probably think this blog is about me
My ego is so big that it can't fit on this blog. I always thought I had a realistic vision of myself but apparently I am not as great as I thought, at least not to the outside world. It turns out that I expect better than what I deserve. Sadly this has been true for all of my life and all of my life I've been brutally reminded of it in an ever so jarring fashion. I have a case of amnesia when it comes to this so even though I am constantly reminded, I also constantly forget.
I'm so stupid. I'm like the baby who puts her hand on the stove only to have it result with a burn on my hand however unlike other babies who learn not to touch the stove after the first time it burned them, I'm still like: "Oh, pretty flame, I think I will try to touch it." I've burnt my fingers so much that there are no nerve endings left in my fingertips. But the flame is still pretty.
Over the course of my lifetime I've come to realize that the statements that hurt the most are those that weren't meant to hurt at all. When people say something mean to you that is truly mean-spirited then it is easy to brush of because you can just tell yourself that they are being an ass. But the comments that sting are the ones that people closest to you say as truths. To the person saying these statements it is just something they said one moment in time like it was just another statement, to the other person it forms a timeloop forever replaying in his or her head whenever he/she is in search of doubts.
I've always thought that I was too hard on myself. My sometimes crippling self-confidence seemed to have no justification until I realize that I've actually been overestimating myself. It's difficult to believe when you are so hard on yourself that it turns out you're not hard enough because you can't see the truth that the people around you do.
Trust isn't something that comes easily to me. In fact, over the course of the years it has become harder and harder. The way I view my experience with trust is like this: Trust is a swimming pool. Every now and again I stick my toe in the water but am quick to pull it out when the water sends freezing shivers up my toe. Then the sun comes out so I try again thinking the water might have warmed up but once again I find my toe suffering from frost bite. I suppose there are some from the jumping in school of thought. But I'm afraid that if I dive right in that my body will freeze upon impact, at least my toe I can amputate and then move on.
Honestly, I don't know how to let people in. Part of me doesn't want to if they are just going to make me dislike myself. It's ok to dislike other people because you aren't stuck with them for eternity. I really don't dislike myself until the world tells me that I should. The culminating effect this has created is that I never try at anything. Why set myself up for failure? In doing so, failure is guaranteed but not well earned. So in the end I'm not even good at failing because I achieve it through inaction.
In my case Cooley's Looking Glass Theory applies whole-heartedly: " I am not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am, I am what I think you think I am."
Half the time in life we judge ourselves based on what we think the world sees us as. But you have to speak in order to be misheard. At the end of the day you have to do it on your own. I look to the outside world to get validation of my self worth but when I do that I merely end up with a fifteen minute parking sticker in Beverly Hills. I seek others to gratify my ego, but they never do. No one can save you other than yourself, others can throw out a lifesaver but ultimately you have to be the one who decides to grab on to it. In reality no one will give you a lifesaver, you need to learn to swim to shore, just make sure you don't swim out too far in the first place.
I hope someday I will be able to truly let people in. But I must remember that it took me nineteen years just to let myself in. Sometimes I don't know why I wait but other times I don't know what I'm waiting for. How can you know something that you obviously haven't found before? Maybe it doesn't exist to begin with. I suppose that is where faith meets reality: hope. I am filled with so much hope, so much so that I don't know where to store it all. The extra gets distributed to the billions of pieces that my heart finds itself in.
When your heart is permanently broken into tiny pieces it means that you can love so many more things you just can't love them as wholly. The one thing that I've learn for certain in this world is that I don't need someone else to break my heart, I can do it all on my own. The curse of the dreamer is the broken heart and yet we all remain pure of heart. So, I guess that makes the dreamer the ultimate heart surgeon. Forever operating on illusions of: grandeur, love, and reality. My ego might not fit on this blog, but my hope and crushing disappointment can't fit on this earth. Yet some how the former seems more upsetting.
I'm so stupid. I'm like the baby who puts her hand on the stove only to have it result with a burn on my hand however unlike other babies who learn not to touch the stove after the first time it burned them, I'm still like: "Oh, pretty flame, I think I will try to touch it." I've burnt my fingers so much that there are no nerve endings left in my fingertips. But the flame is still pretty.
Over the course of my lifetime I've come to realize that the statements that hurt the most are those that weren't meant to hurt at all. When people say something mean to you that is truly mean-spirited then it is easy to brush of because you can just tell yourself that they are being an ass. But the comments that sting are the ones that people closest to you say as truths. To the person saying these statements it is just something they said one moment in time like it was just another statement, to the other person it forms a timeloop forever replaying in his or her head whenever he/she is in search of doubts.
I've always thought that I was too hard on myself. My sometimes crippling self-confidence seemed to have no justification until I realize that I've actually been overestimating myself. It's difficult to believe when you are so hard on yourself that it turns out you're not hard enough because you can't see the truth that the people around you do.
Trust isn't something that comes easily to me. In fact, over the course of the years it has become harder and harder. The way I view my experience with trust is like this: Trust is a swimming pool. Every now and again I stick my toe in the water but am quick to pull it out when the water sends freezing shivers up my toe. Then the sun comes out so I try again thinking the water might have warmed up but once again I find my toe suffering from frost bite. I suppose there are some from the jumping in school of thought. But I'm afraid that if I dive right in that my body will freeze upon impact, at least my toe I can amputate and then move on.
Honestly, I don't know how to let people in. Part of me doesn't want to if they are just going to make me dislike myself. It's ok to dislike other people because you aren't stuck with them for eternity. I really don't dislike myself until the world tells me that I should. The culminating effect this has created is that I never try at anything. Why set myself up for failure? In doing so, failure is guaranteed but not well earned. So in the end I'm not even good at failing because I achieve it through inaction.
In my case Cooley's Looking Glass Theory applies whole-heartedly: " I am not who I think I am, I am not who you think I am, I am what I think you think I am."
Half the time in life we judge ourselves based on what we think the world sees us as. But you have to speak in order to be misheard. At the end of the day you have to do it on your own. I look to the outside world to get validation of my self worth but when I do that I merely end up with a fifteen minute parking sticker in Beverly Hills. I seek others to gratify my ego, but they never do. No one can save you other than yourself, others can throw out a lifesaver but ultimately you have to be the one who decides to grab on to it. In reality no one will give you a lifesaver, you need to learn to swim to shore, just make sure you don't swim out too far in the first place.
I hope someday I will be able to truly let people in. But I must remember that it took me nineteen years just to let myself in. Sometimes I don't know why I wait but other times I don't know what I'm waiting for. How can you know something that you obviously haven't found before? Maybe it doesn't exist to begin with. I suppose that is where faith meets reality: hope. I am filled with so much hope, so much so that I don't know where to store it all. The extra gets distributed to the billions of pieces that my heart finds itself in.
When your heart is permanently broken into tiny pieces it means that you can love so many more things you just can't love them as wholly. The one thing that I've learn for certain in this world is that I don't need someone else to break my heart, I can do it all on my own. The curse of the dreamer is the broken heart and yet we all remain pure of heart. So, I guess that makes the dreamer the ultimate heart surgeon. Forever operating on illusions of: grandeur, love, and reality. My ego might not fit on this blog, but my hope and crushing disappointment can't fit on this earth. Yet some how the former seems more upsetting.
posted by Whit at 6:56 AM
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