treasure: know thyself

"know yourself the best. people don't tell you who you are, you tell them".

On Facebook, at some point in time I hit "Like" on a page called Quotes. Mainly they're ridiculous, and many's the time I've contemplated un-Liking this page. Quotes- words for people who can't make their own words.

This one today got me thinking. And I'm still not entirely convinced it's not incredbily uncool to jump on a be-yourself motivational bandwagon. Fucking hate bandwagons (or maybe I need to research the bandwagon concept... what is a bandwagon anyways?).

There was also a nice blog post this morning about being awesome on HelloGiggles.com. Which was sort of running with the same idea.

I think the important thing to figure out at some point in your early adult life is at least what sort of person you'd like to be. and then accept the fact that realistically, choice and your decisions figures for a portion of your personality, the other parts being how much impact your parents and early life experiences have upon you (read: screwed you up real good).

The hardest part, I've found, is taking that knowledge one step further and realizing the realities of yourself that might not be so nice to look at, the ones you often wish weren't part of you, because they're embarassing, or because they alienate people (or make them run screaming), or because they set you apart from others in a way that makes you feel alone.

I put forward my opinion here, which is that it is these less comfortable bits, the ones that make you uneasy, are the ones that make you who you are. Or rather, the way you negotiate these less-favorable aspects of yourself reveals to anyone paying actual attention the kind of person you are.

Many of my best friends have their little quirks that I sometimes find difficult to deal with, and I'm sure they do too. However, the reason they're all counted by me as best friends is they know, acknowledge and give a wry shrug to their quirks. By no means are any of us perfect.

I used to be really hard on myself about my own quirks. My temper which I can't hide. My need to win, to be right, my unwillingness to accept advice, no matter how well-meant. My inability to let go of the tight control I imagine I have on everything around me. My constant and obsessive habit of planning ahead. I realize now, I'm something of a crazy person.

The best thing I ever did as far as knowing myself better, as far as accepting the crazy Helen, was to move to Whistler, B.C. and take up snowboarding. Not only am I a novice, which I make myself accept on a daily basis (every time I fall over) but I have something which puts me right smack-bang into the right now, and gives my poor brain that second of relief from over-thinking every single little thing.

Riding = winning.

That's what I know about myself. Nobody told me riding would do that for me, because nobody knew. I try to think of the whole deal as a privledge; in knowing yourself you have insight to a whole world at nobody else can really get at. I've focused on the negatives, but the flipside is all the little awesome things that make you who you are: the awesomeness. The HelloGiggles blog noted that the key to awesome is to own every single thing you do.

So, here goes:

Yes, I do love to blog because it gives me a chance to say what I want to say uninterrupted. Yes, sometimes what I want to say is a load of self-indulgent crap. But I don't care! That's what this blog is for me. I've spent a lot of my life listening, and now I'm talking! LOUD NOISES!

And that's why I'm awesome, because I know it.