Stop TALKING about YOURSELF all the time!!!!

show off?

Am I a show off? There are two schools of thought on this topic....

Yes you are, but we love you anyways.-(sister/mom)
and
yes you are, knock it off.-(brother)

I believe I fall in between the two. I may have an anxiety disorder, which leads to excessive narccicistic tendencies. (say that three times fast)
Ofcourse most mental illness is not a great excuse for antisocial behavior, so I need to reform. Hear is an overview of the problem. A list of my recent "bragging" activities;

1. Sewing 10 bat costumes and making an elaborate birthday party for 6yr old girl and all of her friends. I also regularly updated everyone I knew/saw/talked with on the status of the preparations and all of the great awesome things I had planned. I realized that this was not of the general interest, and a conversation about the weather or the status of the local corn crop would have been less braggy, but I was genuinely excited and really wanted to talk about it.

2. Running a speedy half marathon while pushing a baby in a stroller. Lots of fellow runners and spectators congratulated me on my great wonderful accomplishment, and looked on admiringly. I didn't mean to attract so much attention, so I (here it is, my one non-self promoting act all week) I put away my stroller as soon as I possible so people would not recognize me as the "lady who ran with her jogging stroller". I thoroughly enjoyed all of the admiring questions and accolades. I really like attention. Is that so wrong?--not wrong, but it is unfortunate. No one likes a bragger.

3. I go to the Running group Tuesday evenings at Mov'n Shoes in Downtown Madison. I went for a few weeks this summer, then I came back recently and have been attending regularly for three weeks now. The first night I was there I told someone that I ran ultramarathons. Then they told someone else, and now everyone knows. I am not that fast yet, so I wanted to establish my "running credentials" lest anyone think I was a (gasp) beginner. Bragging at running group is not so awful. If there were an arena for bragging it would be at a running group, or previous to another sporting event. The problem is, that I tell people about my running all of the time. I am always thinking about it becaus I am usually sore from a workout, dreading a workout, or wishing I was working out. It really is something I do all the time. perhaps in this arena I could just limit my running talk to fellow runners who are better than me, while running.

Taken as a group these little self promoting transgressions are not too awful. I just need to find a way to keep a lower profile. I met someone who ran a marathon and didn't tell anyone about it. I admire her humility. I told everyone about my silly first marathon weeks before I did it. I was genuinely scared, and was talking about it all of the time because I was scared to death. Unfortunatley bragging, even when it is to assuage the fear of death, is still bragging.

CONCLUSION
My bragging is not awful, but I could stand to keep a lower profile. I will be more likeable when I am more interested in others and stop talking about myself all of the time.

So this week I will do something that is totally incredibly awesome and not tell anyone about it. When people ask about my week I will say "oh no, I haven't done anything awesome at all". I am sure (in a very narcisssistic way), that I have a wide readership. None of you will ever know what awesome, great, crazily creative thing I am doing this week. If you knew you would all be brought to shame by your own lack of ingenuity. You would fall to the ground groveling in your own egergious ignorance of all things awesome. Then praise my pristine perfection as a prime example of a pretty great person.

but that won't happen, because I am not bragging about it.