Thank You

There’s a thin line between humble and self-deprecating.

Here’s a multiple choice test for you:

A friend who hasn’t seen you in a while runs in to you and exclaims, “My God, you look absolutely fabulous!”

You say:

a)Oh, no, not really. I still have so much weight to lose and my roots are growing out.
b)Thank You.
c)I do, don’t I?

If you picked “c”, we need not be talking as your problems tend to be in the other extreme. If, on the other hand, you’re a fan of option “a”, I urge you to change your habits.

In the last few months I’ve learned that if you say something often enough, people start believing it.

There’s nothing wrong with taking compliments and there’s nothing wrong with feeling good about yourself. One of the guys I work with always goes around saying how his wife is so much more wonderful than he is and how lucky he is to have her. On the way to the subway, today, I was telling him how he should stop saying that.

“But, she is,” came the answer.

“That’s not the point. I’m sure she’s wonderful and you are really lucky to have her. But there’s no need to compare yourself to her. There’s no need to undermine your own worth. It doesn’t somehow make her more wonderful if you suck.”

He nodded his head thoughtfully and said that he saw my point.

I understand that it’s hard to get your mind away from such thoughts if you really don’t think so well of yourself, but it really causes others to feel similarly about you.

I used to talk about how fat I was every day. At first my friends told me the usual, “Come on, you’re not fat,” stuff. A few months later, I remember asking a friend about a pair of pants and she crinkled her nose and said, “this makes you sort of fat in the thighs.”

That’s when I realized that thanks to me and my insistence, my friends has started seeing me as what I kept telling them I was.

While going around tooting your own horn is not the wisest thing in the world, neither is bashing yourself continuously.

Cause anything, when heard enough times, starts sounding believable.

Previously? Big Words.