Yesterday, I told people in therapy sessions not to judge themselves for being self centered. How could we not be self centered? If we don’t put ourselves in the center of our own lives, who will?
I, myself, constantly witness people judging themselves very harshly for being self centered, labeling themselves too selfish, too self-absorbed and even narcissistic. This is what I tell those selves:
“If you worry about being a narcissist, you’re not.”
I know my self well enough to know I’m not a narcissist, even though I’ve stopped worrying about that.
Here are some self centered photos from yesterday:
Michael himself centered that delicious food on a plate for me last night after my self-centered therapy group.
Eye — I mean I — am shocked that there are no posts I’ve written, since I first eyed writing a daily blog, with the word “Eye” in the title.
I shall now eye how many posts I’ve written with the word “I” in the title. Would U like to guess how many posts THAT might be?
I love guessing games, as you may have noticed, if you’ve eyed many of my 675 posts.
I just changed my mind, which I’ve heard is a “women’s prerogative.” I think everybody should have the choice to change her or his mind, don’t you?
How have I changed my mind? Rather than have you guess how many times I’ve used the word “I” in a blog post title, here they all R (in reverse chronological order):
Am I the only one who thinks it would have been cooler if there were EXACTLY 50 posts there? Maybe WordPress’s search function missed something. I don’t have time to check that now, though.
What else do I want to say about that list, right now?
That’s a big list.
When I think about it, though, only a small-ish percentage (49 divided by 675 = 7.26%) of the number of posts I’ve written have had the word “I” in the title.
Was it just an excuse to introduce you to Elizabeth, my I.V. nurse — whom I eyed (that is, met) for the first time yesterday? (For reasons why I need an I.V. before I go to the dentist, I suggest you eye this post.)
In that second photo, how do Elizabeth’s eyes (and the rest of her facial expression) look, to you? What do you think she was saying?
Elizabeth (who, like me, lives in all-male household) is demonstrating, in that photo, the look guys get on their face when they say things like:
I can’t find the milk.
Do you know where I put my belt?
I guess Elizabeth and I are both sexist.
What else did I eye yesterday?
That’s my dentist, Dr. Del Castillo. He’s told me that he reads this blog every day, so
Hi, Dr. Del Castillo!
As you can C, Dr. Del Castillo is growing a beard, and his wonderful dental hygienist, Michel (not pictured) is taking a poll of the patients in his practice, even as I am writing this post, to see what they think.
I’m sorry, but i don’t have the results of that poll, right now.
I did ask Dr. Del Castillo’s beautiful wife, Dr. Gonzalez Del Castillo (also not pictured) — who co-owns the practice and is a periodontist (not an oral surgeon, as I originally wrote) — what she thought of her husband’s beard.
You should have seen the look in her eyes, about that.
I didn’t capture THAT displeased expression, but I did take these other pictures yesterday:
When Elizabeth — my I.V. nurse — and I were talking about guys losing track of things, I showed her that last photo, which I had taken earlier in the morning on my walk to work, as proof of …
What? I don’t even want to think about it, right now. I mean, that’s just _____! (Feel free to fill in any word you like, in the comments or elsewhere.)
Before I end this post, I’d like to add a few more things I spied, with my little eye, yesterday.
I predicted, last night in Whole Foods Market, that my bf Michael and I would eye those EXACT cupcakes.
Thanks to Elizabeth, to everybody at Dr. Del Castillo’s dental practice, to U (for reading), to I (or more grammatically, me) (for writing), to Loggins & Messina, and to everybody else who helped me write this post, today.
On the 12th Day of Blogging, my true voice said to me:
I’m kind of obsessed with this blog.
I’m thinking about it a lot. Not just what topics to write about. I’m thinking about How I’m Doing.
In other words, I’m thinking in terms of Success/Failure.
In my work, I like to invite people to consider the possibility that “Success” and “Failure” are constructs — ultimately meaningless and unhelpful. I ask questions like, “What if failure did not exist as a concept?” I love asking that question.
But here’s me — The Zen-like Questioner of Failure — on the 12th day of blogging, and Success/Failure thoughts are creeping in.
Creeping? Hah! They’re up-right, running around, and screaming.
I’m not thrilled about those thoughts, but what’s REALLY bothering me is how I’m behaving.
That is, I’m checking on how I’m doing, throughout the day and night. I do a circuit — a roundelay among WordPress statistics, Facebook, and e-mail — to see if anybody else has liked, commented, followed, or responded in some way.
Click: WordPress.
Click: E-mail.
Click: Facebook.
Repeat, as needed. And I seem to need it, a LOT.
I don’t like that. And I’m labeling it. Narcissistic. Self-absorbed. Solipsistic (my favorite way to say the same thing).
Hey, I know it’s human to want to be important — to dream that once you put your precious thoughts out there, that the world will care — and be riveted.
However, that’s a part of my humanity that I have to work — really hard — to accept.
