Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Weird Beliefs!

You can have weird beliefs, and then, you can grow out of them.

(1) I used to be concerned with popularity. I saw princes and princesses at school, at the grocery store, at PetsMart, at the county fair. In eleventh grade, I visited colleges and estimated the percentage of preps on each campus. At some point in college, early on in my experience, I stopped seeing preppiness. Now, I just don’t. I lost my prep-o-meter. No one on the streets seems like a priss. They all seem way more complex than that.

(2) When I was a kid, I used to think I had to–this sounds crazy–save up happiness for later. I could let out only a certain amount of happy energy per day. I would save it for the times when I needed it. I didn’t want it to run out. The philosophy operated in my life like this:
Let’s say, it’s Saturday, and tonight, I’m going to a sleepover. Before I meet my friends, I have to be grumpy for a little bit & not tap into any of the good resources. I’ll need all the good energy I can get during the sleepover. If I’m excited and happy during the day, I won’t have any happy energy left because...
Okay, this really sounds crazy, but it was like that! For real. This way of thinking carried over into middle school. I thought of it as “saving smiles,” and I genuinely thought it was how I worked. I was so amazed when it went away.
I don’t save up positive energy. I use it whenever I can. I understand joy is infinite: it has no bounds, it doesn’t run out, and I’m not going to have to be grumpy later if I don’t get all the grumpiness out now.

(3) When I was a toddler, I believed that if I walked on the sidewalk behind our condominium, I would be snatched up by kidnappers immediately.


Prin College Bluffs. Winter 2010.

I have no doubt
one day we're gonna
get out.

2 comments:

  1. Isn't is scary that everyone has these? And sometimes it takes waaaay longer than ten years to get rid of them...?

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  2. 1) I used to be obsessed with popularity too! It was because it seemed completely random. The most desirable girls didn't seem prettier, smarter, or more interesting than everyone else, so I assumed it was a matter of complete chance. I also tried to look at this in some sort of mathematical way, making up classes and counting out who was popular with numbers I found in the phone book. Middle school hilarity weirdness.

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