Pride

[allerion]

"Pride goeth before the fall" as the saying goes, but I think ego-based pride goeth before the fall, not just any old pride. One can be proud of something while still knowing its weaknesses and faults, and accepting it anyway

Comments

[gelishan]

WHOA. YOU MADE AN LJ ENTRY.

I may or may not be the only one who READS it, but you totally MADE one. ZOMG.

You have lots to be proud of, dear, and I love you. And I am totally going to steal this, because we can all use some egopride.

[allerion]

I've made a few. You are probably the only Grinnellian that reads this.

In the future, please ask me before linking to my LJ on your LJ post and then posting on Plans about that public entry. As this entry stands, I don't mind the Plans community seeing this one.

[gelishan]

Uh. Ok! I'm sorry-- I had assumed that you were like me and when you left LJ entries unlocked you were comfortable with the world seeing them.

[allerion]

In this case, I consider "the world" to be the LJ community. LJ is not my home ranting-post, so I'm not as familiar with the privacy settings, and therefore tend to ignore them.

But no harm, no foul. You just made me have to think about my comfort level with people jumping from LJ to mine, and it's fine. D and J already know about what I've written in this entry, and if they don't know how harmful it was, they haven't been listening to me.

[islemay]

LJ entry!

I am very glad you only came with in a hair's breadth.

It is wonderful that you are proud of what you have accomplished. It can be hard to remember to take pride in what you have accomplished when it has come with questioning things you were previously certain of.

Adjusting to major changes in life (puberty, college, post college, parenthood, ect) is hard. It really is hard. But getting though each part makes us stronger... sorry, Im sounding corny.

Anyway, it seems like you have shown that you can make a dramatic change, and still land on your feet. So whichever choice you make in 10 months I expect that you will once again make yourself proud.

btw, this is Fiona (just incase you dont remember).

[allerion]

Hi Fiona,

Yes, I remember you. I miss swing dancing with you; alas for geography. If you happen to be in Grinnell this weekend, Molly is putting on a special swing event for the alums coming in for Field Day.

And yes, I was within a hair's breadth of thinking about it, but a few lightyears away from doing it. The closest I ever came was rationally weighing the pros and cons when I was 13? 14?, and then realizing wtf I was doing and being like, "Dude, the future is a wide open country with unimaginable possibilities. There is no way you can know if it's worth giving up now, so don't." And my life has had a steady upward trend since then. As this post mentions, it took a sharp dip recently, but it's heading back up.

Anyway, what are you up to nowadays? I've seen you doing some volunteer and non-profit work here and there, but your Plans updates are getting to be nearly as frequent as my LJ entries :P

[bookwyrm86]

People starting to post again? This, plus the fact that my awesome friend Libby posts every day on her Livejournal is making me want to start writing again...

California has also been simultaneously good and bad for me and Jonathan. We have some truly awesome people out here that I love seeing and hanging out with. On the other hand, being so far away from my family has been taking its toll on me, and my work environment has been ... less than ideal.

I think you've accomplished a lot and you should feel proud of it. Sometimes you do have to remind yourself of that. I've had to do it a bunch recently. Actually it mostly falls under the category of "keeping myself from feeling like a complete loser".

I think we might need to reconnect, as it seems as though we've had a lot of the same issues, problems, and aggravations.

[allerion]

I'm kind of the inverse: I am totally fine being away from my family and my work environment is ideal, but my friend situation is as ideal as your work environment. Which is really what might make me leave, in all honesty: I need close friends I can count on and who I can have a blast with. I have two people like that in NJ trying to get me to come back, and everyone out here I can either count on OR have a blast with. There's one who is nearly both, but we operate on different levels, so sometimes we have to force things a little. But there's a large amount of mutual respect, which helps a lot.

One thing that this has done recently is stop taking myself for granted. Part of that was being forced to choose between my natural kindness and taking care of myself. That is not something I would have ever thought I'd have to do, and yet I was put into a situation where I had to. That one raised a lot of questions on my end during a time when I really didn't need to be thrown any further off balance.