Just putting that out there as the lead in to this post about ego, belief in self, arrogance, confidence...call it what you will. I call it the religion of self. I love me. I've always loved me. Probably cause I long ago stopped caring at all what people thought about me. For example, I can quite comfortably present to a room full of people and not have the slightest bit of self doubt creep into my guts. Sometimes I have completely winged it in large presentations. Apparently that's the sort of thing that makes other people want to curl up in a ball, cry and then vomit. Not so for me.
Lately I've been thinking a lot about the decisions I've made in my life. Not out of a sense of remorse, regret or being maudlin, but just a retrospective of my life. Incidentally, I've read a few really good autobiographies recently too (Phil Collins and Andre Agassi most notably), so perhaps there's a connection? Is this my mid life crisis? Not so much a crisis as a reinstatement of my self love? Perhaps the mid life crisis outlet is an autobiography that spews forth the last 43 years of life on the page? In some ways my blog posts of late have been very much autobiographical. What sort of a tale would I tell if I let it all hang out, warts and all? Would the work become one of fiction? I have to admit to being intrigued by the thought of it, just to see what sort of delicate lies I tell in a medium that people might read and that doesn't just live in my head...
When did the ego get so strong? I guess I've kind of always been happy with who I am. Sure I hated being fat guy deluxe back in the day, but that didn't stop me from being me, it was just an inconvenient shell that I was "trapped" in. Ultimately, the shape of my body hasn't ever defined who I was. Limited my ability to achieve, yes, defined me, no.
With confidence comes a certain arrogance. Again, I don't see that as a bad thing and prefer to call it confidence. It's definitely helped me in the corporate world where I am able to leverage my confidence (arrogance) and make decisions on the fly. I watch other leaders struggle to make the decisions and go round and round. That annoys me. I believe I know the right path and so I push in that direction. It's caught me a few times but nothing dire has come of it. We're not curing cancer or saving babies here, we're generally making decisions about a system or a process that has no life or death impact. Screw it up? Ah well, quickly decide on what to do to fix it and move on.
Where's all this coming from? Am I building up to an autobiography? Part of me wishes my parents and grandparents had written their life stories down. So many cool anecdotes will disappear with them. I kind of like the thought that 60 years from now a distant relative will read an autobiography about me. Funny thing is, I still wouldn't care what they thought of me!
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