vacation in february

As you may know, February is time off for me as it is in between my SPEP rotations. I am surprised how random my days are. I have so many little things that I had planned to address in February; it's not that they take longer than they should, but it just makes each day seem a little disjointed and purposeless in and of itself. Further, I know that in March and April I will be by myself in Victoria, and then for a whole 15 months after that in Toronto starting in July.

Despite this slow craziness of my life this past week, I have had the opportunity to think about me (albeit somewhat disjointedly). I've realized a couple of things about myself:

I rise to a challenge. So far this February, there were days that I found difficult to get myself up and moving - mostly because I didn't have anything I had to do that day or anything to look forward to. And later on, of course, I would succumb to self-flagellation over how low energy, low motivation and low discipline I am, when most of my life in school, motivation and discipline have been my hallmarks and reasons for why I am who I am. However, I think I need to be fairer to myself and also to relax a bit. When I was doing SPEP in January, I indeed did work hard most days, and especially on days that I felt productive, useful and capable. And so now, looking at Victoria and Toronto, these are challenges for me in the near future - and probably more on a personal level than in terms of the difficulty on the pharmacy side of things. It's hard to admit this, but maybe right now, it's best for me to relax, try to do things that I enjoy right now, and get myself in the right state of mind for Victoria.

I'm not as disappointing as I think I am. As you may know, I have always been somewhat uncaring about my accomplishments at the high school and university level. Not that they don't mean anything to me - in fact, they do reinforce my confidence and (on a more practical level) I am so thankful I don't need to rely on my parents as much financially - but I have felt somewhat of a hypocrite a lot of the time. I don't feel that I am actually all that talented at applying pharmacy-related knowledge or at interacting with people (whether it's recommending something to a doctor or trying to express a point or how much I care about someone). It may be somewhat amusing that I also have a little ego of my own, such that when I get ticked off or insulted, it's hard for me to play nice and apologize (if I should). However, usually, I am interested in what anyone has to say and I try my best to "level" with people and connect with them (even if they think that I'm someone special), because I don't believe that I'm special and have been that disdainful of the things that they see, and I just want to get to know people as themselves. (Wow. That was a confusing paragraph.)

Note that another aspect of my personality is that "bad things" tend to rewind and replay themselves in my head, while I need to make a conscious effort to think of examples that reinforce positive thinking (for me, that is. It's a lot easier when I'm encouraging someone else). And so I get down when I have a bad day at work, when I don't feel that I smiled enough or I said the wrong thing or the wrong way (eg. SPEP). But now, I believe the people that are telling me that I do have something to offer and I'm not just a hypocrite that pretends to be someone but doesn't deliver. I've been told that I have "wisdom," that I go out of my way to be kind to other people (and that that inspires them in turn to be kind to others), and that it's really great to just talk with me, from three different people recently. (That sentence took a long time to write. See?).

You know, in some ways, maybe I already knew this; but I went about it the wrong way before. All of us want some sort of recognition or acknowledgement for what we do. (Acting on that, by the way, is an extremely helpful tip for starting to learn how to be an informal leader, in my humble opinion). And for me, what I've caught myself doing is saying things about myself, hoping to get some sort of positive reinforcement, such as "Oh, you know me, I try my best to include everyone, so that's why"I did so and so. Instead of sticking to humility, which has also been one of my trademarks (I enjoy being humble, but you need to be strong to be humble so I don't think I always manage. Maybe a discussion for another day), I throw out a carrot and hope someone thanks me for doing hidden work, even though that's counter-intuitive because if I'm willing to do stuff behind-the-scenes, I shouldn't be doing it to get credit.

So the revelation for me is subtle, but an incredible revelation. But it's really a fleeting glimpse of a different kind of confidence. A confidence that I am, actually, a nice person, and actually smart. And I am going to use the abilities I have and do my best, and be happy doing it. This is in contrast to knowing that people believe I am smart and nice, and having an egotistical sort of confidence that I can act that way and back that up (based on my resume, number of Facebook friends, whatever), and then acting that way, and then hoping to get some sort of reassurance from someone that I am actually smart and nice, because I don't believe it but I desperately want to be, and then changing my behaviour to try to get that reinforcement.