Tuesday, July 2, 2013

UBC day 2 - Flushed pink!

I heard this expression once, “I’m not who I think I am. Nor am I who you think I am. But I am who I think you think I am.” 

I had to read it repeatedly to even understand what it meant! The meaning became clear to me but not until I suffered this expression myself!

I said something incredibly stupid to someone, stupid enough to make me want to cringe at the very thought of it! And if I could somehow have the proverbial “chullu bhar pani” (a handful of water) I would have gladly drowned in it! The more I thought about it, the more my face turned a nasty shade of pink! I apologized repeatedly to that person, as if doing so would rid me of my embarrassment. And the apology addict that I am, I kept apologizing at every given opportunity! “Just one more apology and I’ll be ok” I would think. But I didn’t feel good at all. Far from that, I felt worse!

Theoretically, if I could stop myself from revisiting my past, and try and stay in the present moment, I would probably not feel embarrassed, because what I said belonged to my past. It belonged to a different time and place. Practically though, it was impossible to disassociate oneself like that!

And apologizing kept taking me back to my past. That was a vicious cycle I was getting myself into!

As I tried to rid myself of these feelings, I realized that most of the times, we base our identity on what we think, other people think about us. We assume that people are reacting to our embarrassing act in a way that they may or may not be. And so we base our reaction to our perception of what we guess their reaction may be. That is a lot of needless guesswork!!

Embarrassment belongs to the disorder known as perfectionism. Think about it. You are embarrassed because you didn’t live up to your standards. That tiny little gap between your expectations of yourself and your performance caused that embarrassment. The fear of being perceived in a way that is less endearing than we would like it to be.

And that’s when I realized I need to learn to laugh it off and allow myself some tilting. By the way, having an ant like memory, as in my case, also helps!!  

No one’s perfect anyway! 

34 comments:

  1. Oh Little Princess! what a lovely topic you chose to write! i had to read and re-read the sentence to get a hang of it! :) all yes, of course, it is always good to let loose at times! after all, we all are perfectly imperfect :)

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    1. that's the key word..perfectly imperfect!! thanks!

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  2. I do things that embarrass me a lot, and as long as I do not say things that hurt others, I'm fine. At the end, if the person at the other end is cool about it, we laugh the matter off :D

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    1. we all do it all the time...and yea, as long as we don't end up hurting someone it should be ok, we should be able to laugh it off !!

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  3. what you are saying makes a lot of sense!!! Saying sorry repeatedly doesn't make much of a difference in fact it is like rubbing in the thing!!! Say sorry once & forget!!! simple!

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    1. exactly! but the human mind wants to keep cleansing itself of it's errors and saying sorry has begun to look like a redemption!

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  4. Very rightly said... "No one’s perfect anyway!"

    Your post reminded me of something an old blog buddy wrote long ago on his blog. I loved those lines so much that I saved them on my blog too! Let me find those lines for you...

    Here - “There are millions of men, and women on this planet. Then why is my image so important to me?”

    We create a self-image based on all that guesswork we do, and then we try so hard to live upto that image! Vicious circle, as you said! :)

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    1. so so true! it's a self created image and in living up to it we make ourselves suffer!

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  5. ha! Makes perfect sense!!
    Saying sorry doesn't help at all sometimes.. its better to cut ourselves some slack instead.
    Well written :)

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  6. We always think what the others think about us.But they are not the ones to judge us as one knows herself/himself more than anybody else.loved your post.

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    1. true...! no one knows us better than we do! thanks!

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  7. Makes sense to me!! Sorry once and go on. Sorry twice, shame on me. There is no one perfect, so it is silly to strive for perfection when all we really need to do is strive to be the best we can be as ourselves.

    Kathy
    http://gigglingtruckerswife.blogspot.com

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    1. yea..once it's out of ur mouth,there pretty less that u can do to undo the damage! like someone said, "be careful with ur words, once said, they can only be forgiven not forgotten!"

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  8. That's a really good topic! Oh, I'm a master at putting my foot in my mouth...that's why I prefer typing; at least I can proofread what I wrote!!

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    1. hahahaha..that's what my next topic is about....putting my foot in my mouth..the talkologist that I am!!

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  9. What a beauty you have written :) .. its hangover will remain quite a long time in mind !

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  10. Saying Sorry has somehow becme very common. We can commit a blunder an d say sorry.. If we sincerely feel that we have done something wrong and sincerely say sorry,,then it has an impact on the other oerson.

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    1. more than an impact on the other person,it has a negative impact on us...

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  11. So, in a nut shell, we need to stop over thinking.

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  12. Been there done that!!.... done it so many times that now I think my body has developed a rhino skin.. very thick :P :P... I just kick it and move on now.. :) :)

    liked your space... glad to connect through UBC :)

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    1. that's the way to be! and me too..UBC's been a great platform to connect!

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  13. The very first line inspired me to go through the entire post, even thought I had a little headache to understand the first line :)

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    1. same here Javid...and not till it was my turn to undergo it, did i actually understand!

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  14. err is human. the moment you did some atonement for something you've done wrong, there ends the matter.

    beautiful write.like your style.

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  15. They say, 'Order comes from Chaos'...
    I think that 'perfection comes from imperfection'...

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    1. that couldn't be more true..agree.... agree.... agree!

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  16. A very thought provoking post! I have this habit of revisiting such embarrassing moments too and feel more embarrassed with each memory of it! I have to consciously push such thought away from my head!

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At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person..deep gratitude for those who have lighted the flame within me!! your comments will be appreciated..

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