She's Complicated...And So Are You

I am such a complicated person.

Half of the time, no one really knows what's going on inside me, and on the surface I can just look like I want to have a good time doing whatever I feel like and I'll get to whatever is important later. Which is true in a way. But it's not all I'm made of.

I'm an introvert.

I will tell you things in writing that I would never say aloud.

I can look like all I'm doing is staring out the window while my cereal gets soggy in front of me, when in actuality I'm thinking about whether our surroundings shape our personalities or our personalities shape the way we see our surroundings. (And you would never know if I was not writing this.)

I can be crying my eyes out after a simple little argument, but that's not the whole reason why. A lot of the time, that one little fight could be all it takes to send me plummeting over the side of the emotional cliff when it's been a rough day (or week or month or few hours), and then it all just bogs down on me and I can't stop until I've cried about it all.

But to tell you the truth...

I don't even always understand me.

The only reason I'm able to tell you this is because I've thought this all out and tried to figure myself out. And I'm beginning to learn when we say, "God knows you the best," we are speaking truth. I don't think I will or can ever fully understand myself. If that's true, I can't expect myself to fully understand everyone else. And I sure as heck can't expect to understand God Himself fully.

But come to find out...

We don't need to fully understand someone, in order to love them.

Of course, yes, we must understand them as best we can. If I gave a random person on the street a hug and called that love, I'd be deceiving myself. Was that person's love language actually touch? Did they even like hugs? Maybe they would have felt love through words of encouragement. Or service. Or quality time. I can't do any random act for anyone and call it love. In order to love someone, you must find out the way they feel loved, not how much love you feel towards them when you are doing it.

But I don't have to figure it all out before I start to show them love. I don't have to completely comprehend the way their mind works before I can tell them, "You're amazing," or before I do their laundry for them.

So now it's your turn.

You are such a complicated person.

You could either be laughing with me one minute of the day when I make a joke at the "right" time, or if I told it at the "wrong" time, you would tell me it offended you. You can get angry, and I don't even know why. Sometimes, I do something that hurts you, and when I apologize, feeling horrible, you say not to worry about it. Sometimes, you'll "forgive me," but I know you really don't. You can eat the weirdest things, like pickles on popcorn and shrimp and peanut butter and jelly. Sometimes, I just don't get what you mean, even when it seems to make complete sense to you. I don't fully understand you. Sometimes, I don't at all. But I love you. And I know you love me.


Do you find it hard to love people, or to feel loved by people? What are some ways that we can all feel loved?

- Maddie

5 Reasons Why You Shouldn't Put Yourself Down

I've been noticing a lot lately (I feel like I should have just named this blog that - What Maddie Noticed and/or Has Been Thinking About; Updated Bi-weekly) that people I care about have not been giving themselves enough credit for their talents or for their virtues. In fact, they sometimes say that they're really bad at something when I see that they are actually really good at it. And I just have one question:

Why?

I know we're supposed to be humble, but in my opinion, there is a certain distinction between what is humility and what is taking it too far. God doesn't want us to put ourselves down. Of course, we shouldn't go around bragging and always talking and acting in a way that says, "Look at how great I am at this!", either. On the other hand, I don't believe that we should always bring up the subject of how bad we are at something, or how everyone else is better than we are at it.

Here's why.


1) It makes your friends sad that you never accept what they say.They're trying to be nice and tell you what they love about you, and you are constantly shooting their compliments down with your own reasons of why they shouldn't feel that way. It's not nice to your friends or to yourself.

2) It makes you look like you want people to counter your statement.When you say, "I know I'm a really selfish person," even though people are always telling you that they think you have a gift for being unselfish, it makes the person you are talking to think, "Gosh, here he/she goes again. I've already told him/her that I've seen him/her be a very unselfish person, and that he's/she's a great example of it to me, so what more can I say? On the other hand, if I don't say anything, he'll/she'll think that I agree with him/her, and that's not true..." It makes the other person uncomfortable. It makes them struggle.

“Mary Jane she set at the head of the table, with Susan alongside of her, and said how bad the biscuits was, and how mean the preserves was, and how ornery and tough the fried chickens was—and all that kind of rot, the way women always do for to force out compliments; and the people all knowed everything was tiptop, and said so—said 'How do you get biscuits to brown so nice?' and 'Where, for the land's sake, did you get these amaz'n pickles?' and all that kind of humbug talky-talk, just the way people always does at a supper, you know.” - Huckleberry Finn

3) It's not going to make you feel more humble. If you're doing it because you're proud, and you want to deny compliments because you think it'll make you feel more humble, you need to stop and go about it a different way. I remember a homily from a priest a very long time ago about what true humility is. He said that instead of saying, "Not me, not me, not me," when people give you praise or pay you a compliment, you should simply say, "Thank you," and nothing more. If you are constantly arguing that what they are telling you isn't true, they are going to keep repeating themselves over and over. And you are going to keep hearing it, and it will actually boost your pride instead of lessening it. Has anyone ever paid you a compliment only to accept when you say it's not true because X Y & Z?

"You have a beautiful singing voice."

"Oh, thanks, but I think it's pretty terrible."

"Really? Okay, then."

Has that conversation ever occurred? I can't imagine it has.

Or instead, you can direct the Praise to God. I can't find the exact quote, and I can't even be sure if St Francis De Sales is the particular saint who said it, but I'm pretty sure it was he who said that if you WANT people to praise you, and want to STOP feeling that way because you know it's not right, you should direct the praise to God every time you receive praise, and the actual humility will eventually rub off on you. For instance, you play the piano really well at church one morning and you really want people to come and compliment you on your talent. When they do come to tell you how great you were, even though you wanted the praise, you can say something like, "God gave me the talent." Or, "Thank you. I'm very thankful that God has given me this gift." After practice of this, it will get easier and easier to see that everything you do comes from God and you will want to give him the praise.

4) It gives you a lower image of yourself. Which is not to say that that is all the way bad. A lot of us are too prideful and need to learn to see that we're not as great of a person as we think we are. But we don't want so low of an idea of ourselves where we think that we don't have anything to offer to the world. If we don't love ourselves or appreciate us, how are we going to love and appreciate others?


5) It makes you less likely to share your gift with others. If you keep telling yourself you don't have a certain talent, there's not as great of a chance that you are going to exercise it, and therefore help or inspire others with it. It's kind of like if you have money that God has blessed you with, and you could use it to bless other people. But you've donated to certain causes before and haven't seen a physical impact that your money has made. So you say, "The money coming from me must not be worth very much. It's not making a difference, so why embarrass myself by donating when I'm sure the people I'm giving to roll their eyes when they see that the money is  coming from me? I don't know what else to do with it, but I'm not gonna take a risk by looking foolish." Isn't that ridiculous? Whether you actually see the impact or not, you should know that your money isn't going to waste because it can't be worth less than other people's. The same applies to your talents/gifts.

So there you have it: 5 reasons why it isn't okay to put yourself down. 



Do you agree with me? Does this make sense, or am I just PUTTING YOU DOWN by telling you NOT to put yourself down, in which case, you're going to feel 2 times as put down as you would have before??? Did this post come across as harsh? If it did, then Oh my friends, my friends forgive me! (Yeah, I did just quote Marius Pontmercy. I've been listening to Les Mis, guys).

If you agree and don't feel offended by this post, would you add any more to the list? How often do you find you putting yourself down? Can you name why you do this to yourself? Let us discuss these and related things (or unrelated. It's all cool) in the comments! (And if you need help finding said comments, they're at the bottom of this post). 

-Maddie