Bragging
These moments punctuate my life, like knots on a string maybe. Just this
week, I passed a high-stakes four-hour test. People knew I was taking it
and had asked me to report my results. I planned what I would say to help
them in their quest to pass the test. The things I planned to say were
true and designed to be illuminating and helpful to my peers. It was
harder than I thought. It took me longer than I thought it would. I was
running my plans to tell others by one of my mentors who said, "Don't say
that. It sounds conceited and puffy." I wondered how but apparently
saying that I anticipated an easier go and that I anticipated that I would
finish more quickly are stuck-up things to say. Hmmm. I never thought of
it this way. I thought my comments were rather suitably self deprecating
and even modest. But yes, when you look from another angle it seems I sure
think a lot of my abitities and am very impressed with myself, perhaps
overly so. Apparently those statements - and their inherent warning about
the difficulty of the test may imply that I don't think much of my peers.
That I somehow don't expect them to do as well as I did. That is also
true. I have learned from experience that others are usually slower than
me at things like multiple-choice tests. But apparently some sort of
subtle acknowledgement of this is not appropriate. My mentor said I should
simply state how long it took me, that I passed and wait for questions.
Somehow I realize that my mentor is right. And I begin to cry
uncontrollably because all my life I have been attempting to help others by
giving them information about trails that I blaze, and about the unexpected
difficulties on them - to assist others and to make their path easier and
more well-lighted. And all this time, it has probably been interpreted as
conceit by some. Such a tragic misunderstanding. I am sad. I am so sad.
I am happy to have learned this, a new knot in the string of my life. But
I am so sad that I spent so much time unintentionally bragging in the past.