I’m not Embarassed
On Tuesday, I wrote about the importance and urgency of things. But, what about on a personal level?
I’m not embarassed is the title of this piece. But… I did that on purpose. I misspelled embarrassed on purpose. There is not much that embarrasses me, but things that I know I know and that others know I know and then, still mess up? That embarrasses me. I don’t like when I misspell a word or call someone the wrong name or am late for anything, those things embarrass me. But, they may not embarrass others, or maybe not in the same way.
There is varying importance and urgency of tasks yes, but there is also varying importance and urgency of the things that we do and the things that happen to us.
The movie Hitch with Will Smith has been on the mind lately. There is a scene in there where Albert (Kevin James) spills ketchup on himself.
So, that is, of course, an embarrassing moment for him within the movie. But, as it is embarrassing, is it either urgent or important or both or neither? This is the sort of the thing that I would interpret differently than someone else.
To me, if I spill ketchup on myself, it’ll be important to clean, I don’t like stains. Cleaning the ketchup is also urgent to an extent, I want to get rid of the stain as soon as possible so that it does not set in.
To others, if they spill ketchup on themselves, it may be important to clean, it may be urgent, but maybe for different reasons.
The thing is, we are all a brand. We are all different brands. But, us being us, we represent different things.
To me, my image is a huge thing. Now, I don’t care at all what people think of me. But, I respect what people think.
Gary Vaynerchuk, the CEO of VaynerMedia, wrote in his book, Crush It!,
“I couldn’t care less what people think about me, but I do respect and pay attention to what they say.”
In my opinion, my reputation and what people think of me are completely different but still interdependent. If I spill ketchup on myself, people may think that it is embarrassing for me to spill ketchup on myself. Well, it might be embarrassing, but I don’t have to let myself be embarrassed.
If I spill ketchup on myself does that mean people will THINK that I am a slob? Maybe.
If I spill ketchup on myself does that mean that I AM a slob? No.
If I keep the ketchup on myself does that mean people will THINK I am a slob? Maybe.
If I keep the ketchup on myself does that mean that I AM a slob? No…
At least not exactly, but, it would mean that I am not completely living out who I am. I’m not the person who would let ketchup stain. I like things to be clean, polished, presentable. That’s the brand that I uphold. That is important to me. If my image is not clean or polished or presentable, I let myself feel embarrassed.
The other part of my brand that I uphold very strongly, is faith and integrity and consistency. So, for me here, having ketchup on me is not consistent with who I am and who I want to be nor is it a good representation of who I am and who I want to become.
It comes back to the overall point of urgency and importance. It is important to me that I am well-received and have a reputation that represents me. But, it is not urgent for me.
For others, it is urgent. If they feel they are embarrassed or made a mistake, it needs to be corrected immediately.
But, for me, if I make a mistake, I don’t stress on it, because of my values and then, my brand. Faith that I am who I am and will, with God’s blessing, become who I strive to be. That means that to me, a mistake or an embarrassment is just that, a mistake or embarrassment. So, being the big picture person that I am, I just keep moving. If I embarrass myself one out of 20 times that I eat something with ketchup, I don’t care, it is not important to me.
Often, people tend not to think about this on a personal level and truly reflect on it. We might realize that we get embarrassed but not take the time to consider why and reflect on a deep level.
Are we embarrassed because we think that the moment will hurt our image? Are we embarrassed because we are unsure what people will think of us? Are we embarrassed for another reason?
That is something that we need to determine for ourselves. We need to be intentional and learn to understand why some things are important to us and why some things are unimportant but urgent to us.