This is probably the most honest thing I\u2019ve ever written. I\u2019ve spent a lifetime ruining my own good reputation. In no conscious way, because who would do something like this, intentionally, right? No.. it\u2019s been completely effortlessly, innocently. It just so happens that ruining my own reputation messes with people\u2019s lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes. There are a few people close enough to me to really know me, like my kids, former or late partners (of romantic or business variety), besties, and anyone close enough to love me, because it means they\u2019re going to spend at least some of our shared moments hating me. And when they are hating me, it\u2019s either because I am being a loser, or they are. If they are\u200a\u2014\u200aunless they are my kids\u200a\u2014\u200aI tell them about it\u2026 And then\u2026 what usually happens is that I turn around and do (or don\u2019t do) the thing they caught shit from me for doing (or not doing\u2026)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To be fair, I\u2019m not mean-spirited. I am direct and mostly honest and I see stuff (apparently) that lots of people don\u2019t\u2026 and, lots of people I know don\u2019t like hearing about what I see. It\u2019s been like this my entire life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here\u2019s an example of one of the ways I have contributed to the ruining of my own good name\u200a\u2014\u200aeven if only in my eyes: it\u2019s been a couple of years since I last posted on Medium. Before that, I had been in the practice of writing daily, intentionally, and eventually publishing consistently on Medium\u200a\u2014\u200afor a short while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Then, one day I didn\u2019t write. \u201cNo problem. I\u2019ll write tomorrow,\u201d I told myself. And tomorrow came, but again, no writing. I didn\u2019t get alarmed at first, but I did have several pieces that were time sensitive\u200a\u2014\u200acurrent at the time\u200a\u2014\u200aand I wanted to get them up. In those days, my aim was to publish once daily. Even if I didn\u2019t put up what I wrote that day, I would put up one of those acronym poems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, what was happening on the inside was this long, slow slide into this private place I go. When I go there, I disengage with the outside world. It\u2019s usually gradual, which is why it\u2019s not obvious to me when it\u2019s happening. What tips me off that I\u2019m there is the aftermath of my disappearance\u200a\u2014\u200athe impact that my disappearance has on those I\u2019m connected with. I am not sure why I do it, but thankfully I notice this pattern, now, more so in the past. These days, there is less distraction so I have more time to reflect on patterns like this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay. Back to that pattern of withdrawing from the world which has ruined my reputation, time and again. What\u2019s my reputation worth? And what\u2019s so bad about what I might be reputed for? What\u2019s so bad about being a disappear-er? If you know me, you know where to find me, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Another way I\u2019ve tarnished my reputation is that I have been known to \u2018shoot off at the lip\u2019, as my dad used to say. I\u2019d get heated, usually righteously so, and then I\u2019d call out people on their bullshit. In those days, I rarely took responsibility for my perceptions or perspectives, much less for my own actual <\/em>foibles and habits like fantastical thinking, ill- or under-informed business decisions and an overly-inflated sense of self-awesomeness, just to name a few.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s okay. I know I am awesome. And. The part of me that has not known that I am awesome? Well that part of me coped with that doubt by using superiority and arrogance to run interference. We can\u2019t have the world knowing that I doubt my value or worth. I would be eaten by the dogs\u2026<\/em> And so it goes. More reputation ruiners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because of these discrepancies in self-worth, all of my most important relationships have been at varying degrees of \u2018in the shitter\u2019. In more recent years, I have meditated a lot on nursing the \u2018insecure me\u2019 back to wellness. I\u2019ve gotten to the point, moreso now, of knowing how to be right in my relationships. Not right like \u2018correct\u2019\u200a\u2014\u200aalthough I have been pretty invested in that\u2014 but right, like \u2018not lame\u2019. Because apparently I have been. Quite. (This was a direct reflection of my own \u2018not right\u2019 relationship I\u2019d learned to have with myself, as it turns out.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides, it depends on who you ask. I have looked like an angel to people who don\u2019t have their shit together. (In my past, my life has been filled with those kinds of characters.) Then again, I have looked pretty lame to people who do have their shit together\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now here comes my growing self-esteem to remind me that \u2018shit-together\u2019 is a relative term and that there are many ways to have one\u2019s shit together . There are some ways that I do. Like, I\u2019m honest. And I care. Also, I\u2019m learning to not care too much\u200a\u2014\u200awhich is a problem and is at the heart of most of my relationship difficulties, past or current. It turns out that caring too <\/em>much can result in ruining one\u2019s reputation\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, I don\u2019t care so much about how I am perceived, unless how much I suck becomes someone\u2019s focus. For example, if you ask my daughter about me, who can be kinda neurotic\u200a\u2014\u200athanks to me\u200a\u2014\u200ashe will tell you that I am batshit crazy. Which I find very interesting. That\u2019s remarkably similar to how I regard my mom, who actually is <\/em>batshit crazy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You see it? The way this goes? There\u2019s no way to get free from the cycle other than to get conscious of it. So here I am, getting conscious of it… Which is another way I have my shit together, by the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The truth (with a small \u2018t\u2019) is, we are all a little batshit crazy. And there\u2019s good reason for it. There\u2019s nothing cool about being well adjusted to a profoundly dysfunctional world. It\u2019s alright, as long as we know that this is the case. The upshot of this rant? As long as you are focused today on keeping your reputation with yourself<\/em> in good standing\u200a\u2014\u200awhatever this means for you\u200a\u2014\u200aas your highest priority, the chances of gaining, or regaining, the respect of those around you increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For the record, my mom is only batshit crazy because she\u2019s my mom. In Reality, she\u2019s fine. And so am I. And so are you. Life is far out and nobody gets a manual. My point is, Grace saves the day and reputations can mend with time where we can allow ourselves\u200a\u2014\u200aand those around us\u200a\u2014\u200athe grace we desire to receive from them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n End rant. Enjoy your Grace. It\u2019s way cooler than an untarnished reputation. Grace is a byproduct of the tarnish when you learn to leverage the tarnish, by allowing it to show you where to receive the Love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Reputations This is probably the most honest thing I\u2019ve ever written. I\u2019ve spent a lifetime ruining my own good reputation. In no conscious way, because who would do something like this, intentionally, right? No.. it\u2019s been completely effortlessly, innocently. It just so happens that ruining my own reputation messes with people\u2019s lives. Yes. There are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1477,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1475\/revisions\/1477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pulsemarketing.cloud\/Angelinafrost\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}