Tag: Advice

Self confidence or arrogance? 

The Indecisive Eejit78 Comments

I have no self confidence. 

Some of my work colleagues would probably not believe you if you told them this fact about me. Others who work with me closely are all to aware.

One of my hopes when I attended counselling was that I would be able to have a better understanding of myself and my lack of self confidence. In some ways I did, but I am in no way cured and every day is a battle that sometimes I’m just to tired to fight.

I will continue to try and see myself in a more positive light, but if I do, I want to make sure I am careful of this new responsibility, because I am genuinely curious as to when self confidence becomes arrogance, or even if it does at all.

I’m never going to be one of those people who walks into a party straight to the centre. I’m more of a sneak in and skirt along the sidelines until I find a group of people I feel comfortable with type of person. That kind of confidence I would love, the ability to walk into a room and not feel like every head has turned to scrutinise me.

Now please don’t think I’m being judgemental, because I am honestly not, it’s just that by not having any, I simply don’t understand how the concept of self confidence works and I am genuinely curious.

For example, if I sent you a picture of myself with the caption ‘Look at me, am I not just the most amazing person you have ever seen’, would you class that as self confidence or arrogance?

Just for the record, I’m not ever likely to utter a sentence like that, and if I ever did, I would fully expect you to give me a clip round the ear and ask me who the hell I thought was.

Or if I sent you a picture with the caption ‘I’m gorgeous aren’t I, I bet you wish you could be me.’ Is that self confidence or arrogance?

I read things sometimes and depending on my mood I either think, wow I wish I was brave enough to make a statement like that, or I think, seriously dude, did you just say that.

I do get there is a wider debate around this topic, because more than looks will make a person awesome. I mean I’m ugly as sin, but I make you chuckle sometimes, right!?!?

I’ve had little experience of online dating, mainly because any time I gave it a try it turned into a disaster, but if the intended object of your affection came out with statements like the above, would you give them a chance or skip on by?

I’m genuinely interested to hear your views, or to have you correct me if I’m barking up the wrong tree.

P.s I am NOT online dating, I’m only using it as an example :) I’ve enough feckin trouble lookin after the Fathership!

P.p.s I have never said what I used as my two examples, but they are messages that have been sent to me!

That’s sound advice that is!

The Indecisive Eejit26 Comments

All through your life people will offer you advice. Some will be asked for and some unwanted. Some will be good and some will be unbelievably terrible and often times catastrophic if followed. But at the end of the day, we choose the paths we take throughout our lifetime. I’ve cocked up many times and have no one to blame but myself. However not all the advice I refused to listen to had life changing effects. Here are some of my more memorable / funny ones.

  • “Will you slow down, this is not a race car and you’re only learning.” This was said by my Dad approximately 5 minutes before I crashed his Massey Ferguson tractor into a concrete post which was the only thing stopping it falling down a steepish embankment. We had a long slow walk back to the house to get the digger to rescue it with. There were a lot of apologies on my part and a lot of silence on my Dad’s which meant he was less than pleased.
  • “You’re going to end up getting hurt” – Again said by my Dad. When we were younger my sister and I used to share a room which had two single beds. One night when there was a strong possibility I was pretending to be Dracula or some other mythical creature with fangs, I can’t quite remember, I placed two straws in my mouth and decided to hop back and forth between the two beds. I was going great guns and having the time of my life until I fell against the bed and jammed the top of the straws into the roof of my mouth. I ended up with my head hanging over the side of the bath spitting blood and my Dad probably saying “I told you so.”
  • “Don’t play with that, you’ll break it.” I’m not 100% sure if this is what my Sister said or not, but it was probably something along those lines, and it was in reference to the Sindy horse she received from Santa. I of course did not listen and proceeded to gallop said Sindy horse all over the house by holding onto it’s tail. Tail and horse seperated and I hid behind the freezer hoping no one would find out…or me for that matter me. There is another vicious rumour I fed her pippa dolls to the dog, but hey innocent until proven guilty!
  • “Pull the brakes slowly, they are not working to well” – Said  my friends father as I whizzed down the hill past his house on her bike. Of course I panicked, jammed on the brakes and flew Superwoman style over the handlebars putting my two front teeth through my bottom lip.
  • “Never fall in love with a Scottish Dude” – It took me 3 failed attempts to realise the wisdom behind my friends words. What can I say, I’m a sucker for the accent!
  • “You really do need to study for your exams. Stop looking at me like that, I’m serious, you really do, I wish I had listened to the person who told me” – Oh the arrogance of youth. I didn’t study very hard despite hearing this sentence repeatedly from various sources. I failed most of my exams and had to go back the following year and do them all again. See I wasn’t lying when I said I was not the brightest pixie in the forest :) Many times I have passed on the knowledge in this sentence to others who are sitting exams only to receive the same look that I probably gave. Emphatic pleas and hand gestures follow, usually to no avail.

I’m sure there were many more pearls of wisdom and nuggets of knowledge passed along to me, but being old and not having a very good memory, I cannot recall them at present.

If only I’d seen this 20 or so years ago:

Before you act, listen. Before you react, think. Before you spend, earn. Before you criticize, wait. Before you pray, forgive. Before you quit, try.
— Ernest Hemingway

I’ve been thinking…

The Indecisive Eejit52 Comments

Too many blogs

Thinking is never a good thing, it usually either signals the end of something, or gives me more work to do. Now you’ll have to bear with me here, because my thoughts are very scattered, which means writing them down will most likely be equally as messy.

I was thinking about my blogs, currently as you know I have two, this one and The Misadventures of May Dupp. Ms Dupp originally started here, however around May last year I decided to give her a place of her own. Creating a second blog is great in theory, however keeping up with writing on both is a bit of a nightmare. Too much work turns something I love from being a hobby to more like a job and I already have one of those.

Second point. We all know that the main thing about writing a blog is the interaction. Without the input and support from our followers we would have pretty much nothing. I’m lucky enough to have amassed 85 followers on May’s blog, most of whom already follow me here. However, on May’s blog I am not able to avail of the same interaction, as I would be reading the same posts twice and commenting as both people, if you catch my drift. It’s unfair of me to expect interaction whilst offering nothing in return, and also if someone new likes a post and I in turn like their blog I have a dilemma as to which account I use to follow them with. See how it gets confusing.

So here is where I need some input from you, my lovely followers who I would trust with my life, virtually of course! Would the simplest solution of all be to bring May and her Misadventures back to this blog and make them both one again, but letting May retain her identity so she can comment on her own posts as well as write them. Or do I leave things as they are and let her retain her own little space of Internet heaven?  They don’t call me indecisive for nothing you know!

My fear is that people who follow me there, but not here are missing out on valuable interaction with both myself and you lot, because you are a very entertaining bunch. Secondly, if it all becomes to difficult, will I just throw in the towel like I have been known to do in the past.

What, my little brain boxes, would your advice be?