Wasting Time

Is your self-perception the same as other people's perception of you?  Do you even care? I'm thinking if you are a woman the answer to the second question is yes and if you are a man the answer is no, just my vast generalization hypothesis, there are exceptions. As a woman of a certain age, I am beginning to care less and less, but I still care!  I only wish I cared less when I was younger.  I think caring what other people think of you when you are young holds you back, especially if you are a woman.  At least it did in my case.  I am positive I "coulda been somebody"  but I spent too much time worrying about what other people though of me. This flaw came to my attention a couple of weeks ago on a ski trip.

We love skiing!  We are a lot better than we think we are too!

I was skiing with my sister, my best good friend, my husband and my brother in law.  We (the girls) were constantly critiquing our ski technique.  "I look awkward.  I wish I were a better skier, blah, blah, blah."  We were all very critical of how we skied.  BUT if you asked anyone else, we all ski much better than we think we do.  Why are we so hard on ourselves?  I'm sure the guys all thought they looked like Bode Miller flying down the hill.  Women are so quick to cut themselves down while men think they are Superman.  I grew up when you were considered conceited, which was bad, if you thought you were good at anything and openly admitted it.  We've come a long way baby....things are so much different now, in a good way.  It's OK to be confident in your abilities and to openly admit your strengths.  Be a man!

Self perception is very interesting.  Are you the person they think you are?  If we think we ski differently than others see, then how different is who we think we are from who"they" think we are?   Recently, my eyes have been opened to the fact that others see me differently than I see myself.  After 57 years I find this out! Once again, part of the way I see myself has to do with my insecurities.  I look at myself from the inside out and everyone else sees me from the outside in.   Some of it is for the better and some of it is for the worse.

 According to all those time-wasting surveys on Facebook I am most like Sarabi, the mother in the Lion King and coincidentally my ideal Disney mate is Mufasa, perrrrfect.  My '60's song is Knights In White Satin,  my true favorite color is green as opposed to my real favorite color, which is... green.  My spiritual gift is compassion, I really am a bleeding heart underneath my lion-like exterior.  If I were a city I would be New Orleans....duh!  I also know when to use too, two, to, than, then, accept, except, they're, their, there and other commonly misused words. Which makes me kind of a word nerd or just someone who learned what I was taught.  I'm a sucker for a quick quiz but I don't really put much stock in them other than for their entertainment and, of course, time-wasting value.

One thing I should probably stop wasting my time on is worrying about what other people think of me!  Let's all give ourselves more credit than we usually do because we are all better than we think we are!