understated confidence

Once in a while, you have a day where you just know Someone Upstairs is trying to get their point across. I would be the first to admit I’m a little dense, maybe even stubborn, so it often takes more than one ‘lesson’ before rational thought sinks in. OK, maybe many, many more than just one. At least, this time, the message was subtle instead of the hit-me-over-the-head-with-a-two-by-four lesson that I’ve been subjected to for, oh, say, at least five years running now. Maybe that means I’m almost there.

Last week, I got to observe all the disparities in egos humanly possible (it would seem), compacted into two hours, within the confines of an open house, fueled by cocktails. People watching couldn't have been much better. All the attendees were accomplished businessmen of some flavor. I myself was responsible for two of the guests, who both turned out to be totally delightful.

Talking to them, meeting other guests, watching the rest…the contrasts were glaring. Some of the (primarily) men there were successful beyond my wildest imagination, but they were not the peacocks in the crowd. Most likely to strut and preen were those who’d run their lives aground and were desperately trying to convince themselves (and all around them) that they were big shots, perfect examples of the success they thought they were or pretended to be. Pretense and the real deal in the same room; I saw the businessman’s equivalent of the woman who walks into a party wearing revealing clothing, laughing too loudly, too often, in all the wrong places, all the while looking over her shoulder to see who might be noticing. The behavior of each is born of insecurity.

I know one thing. Ego can be defined many ways, and you have to have some to get through life without getting trampled. Ego run amok is something else. A quiet confidence which springs from the knowledge of self and one’s capabilities, unthreatened by others’ intellects and accomplishments, speaks to that first kind of ego.

That, it seems, is what I’ve been looking for, and that, it seems, is what so many don’t have, substituting arrogance and bravado for self-confidence. Anyone with that kind of uncontrollable egotism I don’t need.

You’re on notice. Get out!

simple pleasures and complicated observations

It could be just my imagination, but I think life at Hell House may be starting to turn around. I’m almost afraid to say this out loud. This supremely ridiculous statement is being uttered by someone whose water heater just broke, as well as the compressor on the air conditioner (for the third time in five years), and who is currently sitting with an inoperable land line phone and a semi-useless television (hey, who needs video when you have audio, right?). That’s only the stuff that’s broken this year….the list of broken stuff still sitting around waiting for repair could fill a page.

So where does this irrational exuberance come from?

Some little things have gone right….I managed to add another rating to my pilot’s license (Instrument Ground Instructor)…an article I wrote may end up being published (for money, even!)....I’ve had at least six interviews to date this year (last year I only had two)….my female bullshit detector finally kicked in (you know that needed to happen!)…I haven’t set the oven on fire lately….small victories, all around.

Strange, unsettling things have happened, too, of course. In times of serious adversity, you find out the folks you thought were friends, really aren’t, and the ones you had no idea even noticed you come though in a pinch. The situation reminds me a lot of the reactions I’ve observed in my friends when, in my prior life, I suffered a death or divorce. Some people don’t know what to say or do, some laugh it off, some ignore it, some quietly go about helping you any way they can without making a big deal about it. Enlightening. People perpetually surprise me. I’ll remember them all.