MOVING YOURSELF FORWARD

I was lucky to have not ever needed to be PERFECT. I remember meeting this very beautiful girl in my 20’s who became, and still is my best friend. One day however, several months after we met, to my astonishment, she suddenly burst into tears. The cause was apparently because she was not Perfect.

Meanwhile back in my world, I had already been told that I must be terribly conceited if I thought that people seeing me among all the people they saw, especially pointed me out and commented on my flaws. After my initial shock at being called conceited in the face of my own timidity and shyness, I saw the point.

It’s been a long time since either of those events but I have come to believe that in reality, most of the people out there have enough of their own concerns, including about their own appearance, to give more than a passing thought to mine.

The latest craze for selfies is something I find very odd. Maybe it translates into a belief that you are the ‘star’ of your own life. That’s the only reason why I could see someone wanting to chronicle so much of their lives in photos. Meanwhile the ‘photo bomber’ approach to someone else’s photos strikes me as crude, rude and childish* However, considering how often it’s done, maybe other people think it’s stellar.

I think the rest of us are more likely to be somewhere in between on just how much notice we deserve and how much we get, especially based on looks. Likely safer to say that, your average person (texting virtually non-stop) can probably hardly be counted on to see anything they aren’t taking a photo of.

Generally, I suggest that you leave most of your self-consciousness at the door, along with most of your ego. In short, work on Getting Over Yourself. Everyone else probably has moved on to someone more interested in people other than themselves. Who knows you might learn something new, make a new friend, or just generally feel that the people you saw, seemed glad to see you and enjoyed your company. Sounds good to me.

*PHOTO BOMB - pho·to·bomb - ˈfōdōˌbäm/ - spoil a photograph of (a person or thing) by unexpectedly appearing in the camera's field of view as the picture is taken, typically as a prank or practical joke.