Been thinking a lot recently about the things I layer myself with to add to my coolness factor. This summer for the first time in years I was no longer the token cellist (one of my co-workers is doing her masters in performance), and this gave me a whole summer to come to terms with the fact that I put things in front of me to keep myself from.. getting hurt I guess. Since about grade 7 or 8 I've basically introduced myself thus: "Hello my name is Madeleine and I play the cello." It's like I can't deal with only being Madeleine. I have to use what I do to explain who I am. I think this comes from not being very good at small talk - always been a bit shy. But also I think I'm partially scared that I'm not cool enough just on my own. I do this with other things as well, not just cello. Knitting, wearing strange clothes, changing my hairstyle, my moral beliefs, etc. All for the sake of self promotion. I think to an extent I even use the guise of humbleness/a call for simplicity to appear cooler. Very ironic.
At some point, I am going to have to either get rid of this self-promotion thing(as much I can) or, now that I'm aware of this, consciously decide to keep it along with whatever level of cool it comes with. The latter decision being a pretty stupid one. I've prided myself in not being scared of change, but then I've never had to change much. The point has come, though, and I'd rather not be a coward.
The skill comes in learning to ask and listen to others, find the common interest or whatever, and then making the personal connection. Does this make sense?
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yeah... the whole "just be yourself" is not very easy
'hi, i'm rachel, and i'm an artist.'
i guess i do the same thing.. but really i think that it IS a large part of who i am, not just something i do. but i see what you're saying.
I dunno, I mean... what are you besides what you do, what you believe, what you enjoy, etc.? Those /are/ the sorts of things that make us special- not any one thing by itself, but the unique combination of everything. And some parts are more important than others, like Rachel said. I don't see anything wrong identifying yourself that way. Unless you meant something else entirely. In which case, I guess it doesn't make sense.
it's more the unashamed self-promotion that i think i need to work on. i don't think i should never talk about cello and stuff i like ever again, i just think i can scale back on the subtext of "i know you think what i do is cool, so i'm going to tell you about it to improve your interest/judgement of me"
it's about being more comfortable with myself i think.
but i like your changing hair styles/colour!
(not trying to discourage you from anything... just saying.)
"Hi I'm Benjamin, and I'm a Chef"
I don't think self-promotion is that bad, it's letting people know who you are
hey maddy, I wandered over here.
thats interesting. i don't know if this is necessarily what your getting at. But in regards to my own life I find i try in a sense to validate who I am by what I do. I'm an 'artist' and thats what gives meaning to who I am? Or I can do 'this' well so I'm great because of that. What I'm learning I guess is that first and foremost I have to be validated by God and how he sees me. I find I get these things in the wrong order sometimes.
Still something I'm figuring out but I thought it was somewhat applicable to your thought.
Thanks for dropping by! Yeah I think you're getting at it. If I only focus on what stuff I've layered myself with, then there will always be people in my life who are better than me and I will never be comfortable with myself. Getting rid of that, and working on just being me I think is the same as preparing to be filled up by God. So he can work with a blank slate, or at least a less prideful one.
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