Here is Robbin’s quote challenge, click here for rules. feel free to participate, just post your comments below, or comment a link.
Being powerful is like being a lady; if you have to tell people you are,
you aren’t. ~ Margaret Thatcher
This is a universal truth that could go in many directions and already has in my head. It’s a classic, will be as true 100 years from now as it is today. It could be on a fortune cookie.
I was going to comment on the lady/gentleman part, because growing up in the South, manners get preached into you with your dinner ice tea and morning grits. It’s a part of our culture that we miss when we go other places; sometimes without even knowing why. But as the lady said, it should show without you having to open your mouth. That’s true of oh so many things, religion shouldn’t have to be shouted from the rooftops. It should be a part of your behavior in such a way that people see you are different from the norm. I saw on someone’s shield a quote that went something like this. “Chivalry isn’t given, it’s recognized.” Can’t remember the exact words, but it makes so much sense. Don’t say it do it -and it will be recognized. And even if its not recognized in the way you want, someone sees, it will come to good. Actions will always speak louder than words.
The reason someone has to tell you they are powerful, smart, funny, nice, religious, talented, fill in the blank, is because they aren’t hearing it from anyone else so they have to make sure it gets said. Sometimes they say those things for as an explanation for a certain behavior, i.e. “I don’t eat pork because of my religion.” It could also be that those are the qualities they value and that they want/hope to have. But actions have to follow those words.
As Thatcher so astutely says, the moment you make one of those, “I’m this” statements you have given up power, revealed what is important to you, revealed a weakness. In some environments that may be fine, in others you may wish you hadn’t revealed your Achilles heel.
Power, real power comes from within. From that well of strength of just knowing who you are and where you come from. It’s from knowing that no matter what storms rage on the surface, deep down is the assurance that everything will be ok. I’ve known several people in my life that were quiet, calm and self assured, they didn’t have to go around stating their purpose, their mission, who they were, it just oozed out of them. They didn’t let every comment or slight made by other people rock their world because they were secure in who they were. After a while you learn that no matter how good things are or how awful, this is just surface, like the weather, and it’s going to change.
The nicest people I know don’t go around saying how nice they are, they just are and we can see it.
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I thought about this and also realized another direction. Sometimes, people tell you they are “smart, funny, etc” because they didn’t hear it growing up. We all have a basic need to be accepted and told that we are “good” and sometimes that manifests itself as an insecurity that comes out as a “self promotion” concept. Just a thought. 🙂
I agree, I don’t think everyone who says, “I could tell you what I think, but I’m too nice to do so” is self-promoting.
Sometimes talking is easier than writing, sometimes harder.
I think perhaps not all of the people who are waving their own flags are braggarts or delusional. Some must be, like Cinnkitty says, without that foundation from early life. We nurture ourselves when others will not. If no one ever treated me like a lady, I might want to climb on a roof and scream at the world that I was a lady and wanted to be treated as such. But, those are probably a minority of the people we’re talking about here. Like the joke about sex, those who talk about it the most are probably getting it the least. Those who stick it in your face are surely trying to patch up their own self image through others eyes. And that’s just a big loop that ends in disappointment. Convince yourself that you are a lady, and the world won’t be able to make you doubt yourself.
“I don’t eat pork because of my religion. Which is breathing, of course.”
(giggle)