Career Augmentation

So I've heard a radio commercial the past couple weeks and just think it is hilarious. It starts out with statistics about how a lot about a person is judged by their appearance in a job interview and that employer decisions can be made in the first few minutes. I'm with you there. I'm thinking this is an add for a women's business apparel line or an acne treatment...maybe even teeth whitening. It proceeds with a question along the lines of, "Have you ever thought of the change in your life that could occur with breast augmentation?" And you lost me...What in the world? It's not that it's being advertised that shocks me, but that it's being advertised as a good career move...really? Now unless you're applying for a waitress job at Hooters or are looking to have to file a sexual harassment complaint in your first few months of work, I'm not sure if the the two topics belong in the same commercial. Let's call it like it is! If a breast augmentation is your thing, I doubt it has anything to do with your career. Your new bikini, your loss of altitude due to age or babies, sure...but the office? Hmmm... I'm thinking, spend the thousands it would take to have a surgery like that and take some more classes in your field of work...wouldn't that be a better direct correlation? I don't know, I may be ignorant but it feels very "sleep your way to the top" in the kind of way that seems only to be in sitcoms or movies. I could be wrong. I'm not so sure I'm completely against plastic surgery but I don't know that I would say I had work done for any practical reason...that would be a lie. It'd be completely for the looks and I'd come to grips with that without feeling the need to pretend it was something else. I see the day when I'll want my well defined chin and jaw line to stick around even when jowels are forming and I'm not above doing what it takes. But it's late...I've applied my anti-wrinkle cream to my eyes and smile lines and I'm off to bed!

Self-Esteem Wars: The Parable of the Prom Queen

No one can make you feel about yourself something that you do no already feel. That being said, there is this kid I know that "makes" me feel small. It is obviously a tendency I have anyway but for some reason, every time I come away from interaction with him, I feel stupid. I am not stupid...but I do not know everything. There are some things I am interested in...and there are some I am not that perhaps, I should become interested in (to expand my mind and all such nonsense). But the point is that I feel like an insecure high schooler again. Insecurity is no longer a great part of my identity, but it lingers in the shadows and claims hold on me when failures occur (as they do to everyone), or when wonderfully handsome young men don't express their undying love on first sight of me. Speaking of high school, I now present...
The Parable of the Prom Queen
There once was a wonderful young girl who didn't know it. She was actively engaged in music and sports in her high school and so became acquaintances, if not friends, with many people she came in contact with. She was fairly insecure so fairly unpretentious and thus open to conversation and interaction with most people in the varying casts of the social hierarchy known as high school. She enjoyed her pursuits and succeeded to an acceptable or more degree in a lot of them. Due to her varying activities she had different circles, enjoying and feeling cared about in some of the more remote as opposed to some of the more near. She was not extraordinary but hardly inconsequential. And yet, due in part to her gender (known for insecurity) and her age (infamous for insecurity) and to some degree, her peers, she at times thought very little of herself. Some things, which looking on with hindsight are only funny and great stories to for future generations, furthered her doubt in herself and they included among other things, the necessity for finding her own prom date. Silly as that event is to many at a more advanced age, to a teenager, the prom held too much weight. As a senior, the circumstances requiring finding a date were these: no other "appropriate" date had presented himself, and her name had appeared on the royalty ballot, requiring her attendance. So she found her own date and went to her prom. And what to her surprise, when she left with a crown on her head. Oh the irony of finding her own date and at times feeling friendless and small and then having the school crown her prom queen. Where did they get off? It meant very little to her because she was not convinced and thus forms the basis of our parable. The opinions of others matter very little when ones opinion of self is also very little. Others may think high or they may think low but think themselves blue, it avails nothing when the only opinion that matters is that of number one.
Back to the one who makes me feel small at present. I think through scenarios sometimes of how, when confronted with just the right situation, just the right words will come out of my mouth with just the right musical score playing in the background and I thought of these words; "I am a lot of things. But when I am with you, I become only those things that I am not. So I am done trying to prove myself to you. I am to busy proving myself to me." I thought of another someone who would have me focus on my lack and his name is Satan. I continued in the thought and realized that rounding out the trio of those who see only negative in who I am, was me.
Continuing, I think of this high schooler lying 7 years below the surface and realize that I am still the one who's opinion of me matters. The truth of the matter is that debate club captain, athletic star, or band geek, the spectrum of high schoolers likely all missed an opportunity that year to decide that, though their peers placed a crown on the head of another, the most important crown to place would be that of self confidence and the only hands to do the job would be their own. Hopefully, they have all taken the opportunity to do so for themselves since. And so I now "publicly" do the same. From this point forward, I denounce the identity of the awkwardly tall, insecure teenager, who felt stupid for finding her own date, and embrace the prom queen.

Happy Christmas! The Grinch is so deep. I was talking to HRH this morning about my frustration with personalities I don't understand. There was a lot of therapist mumbo-jumbo (she's pretty cool but don't let her into your head!) and turns out I need to change some of my thinking. Take the movie for instance. Sure he's green but you Whos have antenna on your head! Talk about weird! Sometimes love is about learning to accept a different brand of ugly! Random thoughts...courtesy my brain and the ruffling of my roommate/therapist! (I also need to learn to be okay with my own brand of ugly...but that was completetly different therapy session!)

Beaten, battered...Hope!

I was looking at this little figurine I have...she looks a lot like the one to your right. Only mine looks a little different! This is a Willow Tree product and her name is "Hope" (notice the lantern). I was sitting last night on my bed looking at her standing on my desk and I thought, "I should probably replace her." The reasons for these thoughts were as follows: her wings are crooked, her hand (the one that's down to her side) is...missing, and there is a crack in her neck where I SUPERGLUED HER HEAD BACK ON. No, I'm not getting any anger out on this small, helpless thing. I've moved a couple times recently (college housing) and she's been on tall dressers with books and junk shoved on them so she's had her fair share of falls. Anyway, after the thoughts of replacing her came I kept thinking about it. She is more "Hope" now than she was when I removed her from her bubble wrapped, styrophomed, sheltered beginning. Her hope has been tried and she's still there, lantern and all. Cheesy metaphor, but it's what I can do for now. This year has turned me into her. It's been a ride and it's not over yet. But here I stand, full of hope and understanding more about it now than I did before. (Note to friends who may not have seen me recently: my left hand is still in tact.)