STORYTIME TAPESTRY

Special Treat   - From Me  

March 21, 2005

I know

Carol Roach

Another tidbit from the 42daywriting course.

I know a lot of things and yet I know nothing at all. I once read somewhere that only a fool thinks he knows everything.

I know that I sometimes come across as someone who thinks she knows everything. I have been working on that aspect of my personality for some time now and I am proud to say I am doing much better. I no longer feel that I have to convince someone else to take on my point of view. However, my weakness lies in thinking people don??™t understand my point of view and that is where sometimes I will drive my point home. The difference now is that I am the one first to say okay we are not going to agree on this point, let??™s agree to disagree or let??™s just drop the subject. There are so many other things that we can be talking about.

I know that just because a person disagrees with me on a certain issue, it does not mean that he/she disregards me, disrespects me, or dislikes me. I think in my life this was the hardest truth to learn. Being right had always been connected to my self esteem.

I know that I am loved, and for much of my life I did not know that. Now I know that I am loved even by people I do not know, or ever met. It is a great feeling.

But what I am still working on, still getting to know, is that people can want to emulate me, and can find me courageous, determined, self actualized. For me that is hard to understand. When I hear somebody say Carol I wish I was more like you, I still laugh to myself and say, gee I wish I could be more like somebody else.

What I know from these feelings is that I need to love myself; I need to see in me what others do. I need to give myself credit for the good in me, and to look at what I have accomplished rather than dwell on the negative and what I feel I have failed to do.

In all of this:

I know that I am loved.

I know that I am admired.

I know that my opinions count for something. If the whole world does not agree with me that is still ???okay???.

I know that I am in the process of self actualizing; I am constantly improving myself, and constantly searching for new aspects of self that remain dormant. I seek to awaken all that is within me, to be the best that I can be.

Yes Abraham Maszlow, I know that I am self actualizing!

Carol Roach

winterose@videotron.ca