Random Ponderings

Well, I don't think that it's necessary to blog just because I have some free time. However, I feel like thoughts are running around inside my head, and that one of them might take form. Then again, I've got that same writer's block that takes my enchanted story ideas from my head and turns them into two-year-old writing on the computer. Bleh.

Last year I had a theory that too much time alone with my thoughts was a bad thing - that I just got too critical of myself and the world around me. Now I'm rethinking that theory. It still holds. But there are qualifications. I think the danger of being alone with your thoughts comes when you are alone with people, or alone when you should be with people.

For example, when I was in Chicago, I was probably the most confident I've ever been. Probably one of the reasons I want to go back there. Also one of the reasons I'm afraid to. I was alone - but I didn't have much of a choice. I had two friends already there, and a few more I'd made from work. But really, when it came down to it - no roommate, no church friends, no pals to call up on the evenings or weekends.

But when you're sitting in a group of people, stony silent (not in an angry way, but in a shy way), well, that's when it hits you. I mean, an interesting person would have people talking to her. She would be able to join in with something that would delight the whole group.

And the other problem is when you're alone because...I don't know...a friend bowed out of a lunch date, your other friends are doing homework and you're done, etc. I think the danger there is that you feel you should have more friends - more options. That you weren't the top of their list.

Of course, neither of those scenarios are logically correct. Although, Janel and I had a joke about all the things that ranked above me in her life: school, plants, sleep, fiance....and so on...

I have no idea where this is going. Perhaps it will continue until it has a concrete ending. Or I could stop now.

I think what we had decided (we being me and a friend of mine) was to just take the confidence with me from Chicago back to Kansas City. I mean, there's only a few sorority girls standing in my way. And maybe there's a better way of saying all that.

Everyone knows that we're all our own worst critics. And I guess that when you're alone - I mean, truly alone - what have you got to be critical of? You see your downfalls, acknowledge them, and move on. But when you're in a group, all of the sudden there's a standard to compare yourself to. It's not that you're not interesting - it's that you're not as interesting as her. And it's not that you don't have any friends. It's that you don't have as many friends as you should.

Maybe, then, we all do it?

All I know is that, I'm so happy to be able to find my way out of dangerous thoughts. I mean, if I find myself dwelling on the same thing over and over again, I take control, yell at myself, and order myself to just do something about it. Like my five step plan to greater self confidence.

Yes, I think that was a good introduction to Sarah's Five Step Plan. That shall be the next post!