Day 1: Butterflies and a Bad Attitude

Day One- 9/19/17


Well, my month has gotten off to an interesting start. A part of me expected that any sort of confrontation with anyone would be far off from day one... that it would just be too unlucky to actually have to engage in the not-giving-of-f#cks so close to the start of my experiment.

As one might guess from the above phrasing, I was wrong.


As I made my walk in to downtown this morning, I passed the local beverage redemption center, and lo and behold- to my absolute delight! (not) - there was the older man who had so kindly occupied my previous week's lunch break with his inappropriate comments and winking. 

To my (kind of?) surprise, he smiled at me and loudly asked:

"How are you doin' this morning, sweetie?"

I then, very much against my initial urge to just smile and keep walking, kept my face fixed firm in an obvious frown, looked him dead in the eye to convey this not-happiness, and continued walking on my path.

"Geez, I guess someone has a bad attitude today!"


Wow.  I felt myself bubble over internally with anger pretty much the entire rest of my morning. How dare he act as if I owe him any semblance of conversation? How is my attitude the fundamental issue here?

One main takeaway, however, was the strong feeling of nervousness I felt- like butterflies in my stomach- when I didn't smile.

It almost felt like I was breaking some kind of rule. I got the distinct sense that I was doing something "wrong"- or at the very least, that I was somehow being bad.

And here's the real kicker- this was all coming from me.

So, that's that. Day 1 and I think I'm starting to see that some of what's been stopping me...has been me.
 It is time to get rid of the nice-girl programming that's holding me back from helping myself, first. 

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