Takes one to know one, Sweetie...

(Pre-Script: To make the most of this post, please read it as the song, "Live Like We're Dying," #54 on the playlist, plays in the background. Go down to the playlist, click on that song, then come back and resume reading. I'll wait...) (...still waiting...)

...As in,

"I am the exact same thing that I am calling you"

How many things are you self conscious about, and what is the first thing you notice about another person?

Someone wants to answer,

"His or her smile!"

or

"If He or She seem genuine or not!"
But I'm going to stop you right there, Sweetie.

You see, I have long held the belief that the first thing we notice in another person is the first thing we are insecure about in ourselves.
In other words, we're all just thinking about our own selves, most of the time, and looking to other people as a sort of mirror, to validate what we already believe to be true about ourselves. This makes sense because we spend all day, every day with ourselves; not just with ourselves, but IN ourselves. Our own bodies, minds, and hearts. So in a way this is only natural.
When a person points out to me a supposed flaw of his or hers, I am caught off guard; I have usually never noticed this particular "flaw," or even thought of it as a flaw if I did notice it, before that person pointed it out to me.

I have experience the opposite of this as well. I have felt brave enough to reach out and touch someone with an insecurity of my own, something that I am sure the person has already noticed, and in so doing, has judged me as lacking and inadequate. I see this moment as, "You and I already know that this particular thing is wrong with me, and it has always been the elephant in the room that we talk around; now I am finally mentioning it by name, out loud.

"Here, Big blue elephant, I see you; no use trying to hide you any longer."

But the reactions I have most often witnessed from sharing my deep dark insecurities are usually something like a look of bored surprise or incomprehension, with a statement like,
"That's all? I would have never known you were insecure about that."

Blink...

-wait for it-

Blink,...

...and cue topic change.

The other person changes the topic because the issue I have brought up that was Monumentally Shameful In My Own Eyes (or, MSIMOE) doesn't even touch the person's own Radar Of Important Things To Talk About (or, ROITTTA). It doesn't even warrant attention, other than the "I am sorry that you feel insecure about something I never even noticed before" variety.

Insecurity is the flip side of the same coin as pride. It's choosing to believe what you believe about yourself instead of what is actually true.

It's self focus, all self, all the time, even if what you are focusing on is the things you wish to change about yourself.

(Aw, fo-gettaboutit)

I might have done a much better job of typing this, if I wasn't so distracted by all of the giant logs in my green peepers, peeps; they keep floating past in the mirror; sometimes instead of pulling them out, I like to float on them for a bit, or paint them up, so as to make them look like boats on which I sail, or life rafts; something to cutesify and hide behind, not giant logs that blind me from ever seeing anything beyond myself...possibly including, but not limited to, whatever my real purpose in life is supposed to be.

Blink

Blink
You'll have to forgive me, they can be quite distracting sometimes.

Happy paranoia, and getting over it, already, Sweetie.

-XOXO,