positively 1st street

from the i am so ridiculous collection...
in considering my internal dialogue i noticed i say a lot of derogatory stuff to myself.  i know better.  we all do-right?  verbally abusing myself snuck up on me, however. 

ego is a funny thing.  at times i have had such a large ego as to think it was just natural for me to be better at things than other people.  friends and family used to tease me about playing games, from pool or basketball, to cards or clue, they would say i was too competitive and that it sometimes made it less than fun for them to play.  i was compelled to try to adopt a casual tone about games. 

in fact i wasn't that great.  i am sure i had seasons of excellence like anyone else but in a grand scheme my life performance has been marked by mediocrity.  whoops!?!  there i just did it again.

so this is the type of thing i do.  while there may be truth in that statement, perhaps i am mediocrity personified, giving the thought utterance works against the effort to improve. 

i want to be the best me i can be. i still want greatness.

in my seasons of egotism i played mental games with myself.  in my recreational basketball league i took to berating myself when i made a bad play.  i seemed to think i was better than everyone else out there and in spite of conventional wisdom recommending a positive internal dialogue, i decided i wanted to be above that idea.  i disliked bravado and self aggrandizement in others and so my objective was to play better than others, (especially those guys who often thumped their chests,) and to do it quietly, but meanly in as much as i caused others to lose.  my ultimate joy was to make eye contact after the game with a guy who had made a few plays against us and who cheered himself demonstratively, or even to pat him on the back as i walked out of the gym a victor.  the same was true at night in the bars around the pool table.  i meant to be a machine who just quietly won over and over and over again.  it was the best way i could tell those self proclaimed sharks to the shut the fuck up. 

that worked at some points in time.  at basketball, as at pool or other contests, i came to understand how fleeting one's prime is.  as my skills eroded my inner commentary grew harsher.  on the basketball court when i missed shots, i might say to myself, "nice one."  it's a sarcasm born of a sly despair and ignorance.  in the work place on those occasions when i knew i had not done my best work i scolded myself for not finding more time or not starting earlier

this destructive habit occurred to me recently on the basketball court.  i had a good day when my knees felt very limber and strong and the warm weather helped make them so.  i played better than normal too, and i recalled that swagger of yesteryear.  i remembered a different dialogue, one in which i just assumed i was better than the guy guarding me and that there was no way he could stop me from doing whatever i wanted to do. 

i haven't had a lot of days like that recently so it stood in stark contrast to the meme of the day, which is that i am getting old.  the contrast got me to thinking.  i'm going to make a change.  i am going to positive up that internal dialogue.  (should be good.)