NO U

I grew up with a pretty shit image of myself. From an early age, the mental model that I had for myself was that I was a fat, dumb, boring child. Nothing about me was special and anything that people liked about me was just me being fake or tricking them into liking this nice little front I created. 

Needless to say, I don’t do well with compliments HAHA. 

Random aside, but a compliment is a nice thing we say to people (OMG I love your shoes and your dress!); complement is what we use when things work in harmony (her shoes complement her dress) or the actual item itself (her shoes are the perfect complement to her dress).

Anyways, over the years I’ve learned that I am not the only one shit with compliments. In fact, one of my favorite comic artists The Oatmeal recently posted this comic about compliments as well. But more personal than that comic, I realized this through the fact that the people close to me get just as uncomfy with compliments. People love to downplay their achievements others praise them for or will knock themself down to bring other people up. 

I saw this recently as some of the other interns I worked with kept telling each other that their presentation was worse than the other person’s. And looking as an outsider in on this conversation, I gotta say it’s so weird. I’ve worked with both of these lovely people for the last 10 weeks. I can confidently say that these are two strong, kind, intelligent people who will make a big impact wherever they will be.

And yet this is almost a hypocritical thought, as I know that when I’m in their shoes, I act the exact same way. It’s always like nono I’m not that great or yours was so much better. 

BUT WHY?

Something that I grew up knowing but only started fully realizing and believing is that everyone truly is so special and unique. Obviously, some of those people are unique in ways that make me angry (looking at you anti-vaxxers) but even still, I cannot deny those people their uniqueness. Each person brings their own thoughts, voices, and experiences into any space they go to. And no one else will be able to perfectly match you in those things. Those belong to us. 

But I don’t believe we live in a world that truly believes and utilizes this idea of uniqueness. Many times when we talk about jobs, people just feel like cogs in a machine where if they leave or fail, someone can easily come in and start doing the exact same thing. We spend so much effort into sending all our students to college without even considering if that even is the best option for their skillsets and desires. Why? Because these systems don’t value our uniqueness. So rather than seeing ourselves as different from others, we spend so much time thinking about how similar we are to others and how they can do what we do but better or faster. 

I would very much like this to change. People deserve to not just know but believe that who they are and what they do is special. Obviously, easier said than done, but let’s try it. 

If I tell you right now, ”Hey! I think you’re unique and special just the way that you are and that what you bring to the table no one else can!”

What are your go-to thoughts? 

“He’s never even met me so he can’t know that” 

“That’s just not true” 

“I don’t think so” 

“Oh. Sure.”

“They’re nice words but I don’t believe em”

Are they along those lines up there? If so, why is that? Do you think I’m lying to you? Do you think I made this whole post about how I think people are special just to lie to YOU that YOU alone are not? 

I encourage you to really reflect on these reactions and find out what your mental model of yourself is. And I would love to say shatter that and replace it, but that shit is hard. I rely on my friends and my therapist still to keep me from spiraling too deep. It’s rough, it’s painful, I cry almost every time, but I think it’s worth it. Because at the end of the day, I think everyone deserves to be able to hear something nice about themselves, give a big open mouth smile, say “thanks!”, and genuinely believe it.