Wednesday, October 13, 2010

I Compete with Me so Let I beat Me


Most people think that "first impressions last". Surely they will last when the first time you've known the person is also the last time, because that limited interaction is the only schema you will have about the person for the rest of your life if you did not have any other time spent to know him or her better. To rectify this: "distinct impressions last, whether first or whatever, as figments in human memory".

Competitive, competent, concerned, caring and critical are some adjectives other people use to describe me. On the other hand, a crisis emerges when some people allude these traits to conceit.If I were to describe my self -- I is me, and me is me.I can't force myself to morph to the mold anyone wants me to be. I think and my being depends on my personal choice of how I want my self to be. I don't compete with others, because my competitor is me.

My identity, personality, character, values, thoughts, expressions and actions do not make me. They are parts of me, but I am more than me. I am me. What people sense in me are not all of me, and most often others are not aware of the I in me. I feel that most people who are so insecure of others are not really secure of their selves, and the only business that they can prosper is to mouth about others and not look into their selves.

When I was a child I didn't know of the I in me, and I didn't even know who is me; neither do I have a choice to define who I am and what is me. It was they, who told me things about me, they took care of fashioning me as they thought me to be. Thus, how others find me, is not all that I wanted me to be. The world has no longer hold of me, as I have learned that I am part of creating this world. I am empowered to be in control of not only examining my world but also making it.

I am not a child anymore, in age and in mind. Yes I do want to be childlike as God wants all his children to be. I am an adult,a young adult, But I share the same rights and privileges of making me, as I want me to be. I can choose to be excellent or to be dysfunctional, I can choose to be near or to be far. I can choose to hide, or to expose, I can choose to talk, or be silent. I can choose to help, or be helped. I can choose to affirm, or disagree. I can choose to value the respectable, or ignore the ignoble. I can choose to cooperate,or to be separate. I can choose to work, or to stay idle. I can choose so I can be. I can choose who I want to be.

I can be competitive or passive. I can be competent or incompetent. I can be concerned or pathetic. I can be caring or indifferent. I can be concerned or self-centered. I can be critical or dumb. I can stand tall, but others will think of that as conceit. I can be assertive of my thoughts, but others will think of that as arrogance. I can be expressive of my feelings, but others will see that as extreme audacity. I can think aloud, but others will think of that subversive. I can be what others will like and I can be what others will not like.

But I can not be a mediocre to please two opposing sides.So with these, some people have impressions that I am conceited. That is not me, and that is not who I really am. This is the adult world's crisis. Adults train the child to be independent and confident, and when they have grown to be such, adults think that the younger should find their place lower than them. Socially, hierarchy and caste are constructed to keep the status quo even to the point of tearing the whole system apart.

I am competitive, competent, concerned, caring and critical. That is me, others can think of anything about me. I will think about them also, reflect and examine my self, but anything else beyond what I see my self can not immideately change the way I see me to be. Should I drop these, then what is me? I am not you, nor they nor anyone else, but me. Being so is not in anyway contradicting to my faith in God who wants all that is excellent for his children to be. He knows me, more than anyone else, and little by little I see that revealed in me.

1 comment:

skysenshi said...

I've definitely never seen you being incompetent. :P