A New Perspective

As alluded to in more than one post, I recognize that I can be a bit egocentric and vain and I believe these qualities can be adopted both when you're used to being the center of attention and when you get used to exclusion. If there aren't a whole lot of people building you up, you end up working extra hard to build yourself up. Hence the striving. I was remarkably lucky to end up with the family support my siblings and I were lacking but due to circumstances I can't even remember, I was a shy kid with random tantrums or break-downs and it made it hard to make friends. Between that and how often I misread directions, I could tell my peers thought I was dumb. But I knew otherwise and strove to prove it, however every C I got could make me burst into tears. Finally, by fifth grade I had a better handle on some of my dyslexic problems and got put into a higher level math class. We had 60 second math quizzes and I was able to calm down enough to see the difference between ÷ and + because in math and in reading, the faster I'm trying to go, the more the letters, numbers or signs seem to change. Anyway, what I'm getting at is actually two fold. One, having to build your ego despite the circumstances can cause us do over do it and start feeling vain or conceited. Also, even though we all know the world doesn't revolve around any single person, being stuck in one body, only having one perspective can make you feel like no one else has ever gone through the shit you've been through and that everything appears to go around and around you. And that's something that has always bothered me about life. I want to see things from many perspectives, to know what the kids sitting on the other side of the room saw. I want to know what other people's internal monologues are about themselves.
This post isn't meant to put a glamorous spin on ego-centrism. My goal is to learn how to tight-rope walk on that razor thin line between self-confidence and vanity without falling off into the pit of self-doubt. It's a directionless pit beneath the tight-rope but hopefully it's never bottomless, because it would make it extraordinarily difficult to get back on the rope and try again.