A rather painful confession. This is going to be a lot of talking.

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it."  C.S. Lewis

I've been reading Mere Christianity these past couple of days.  I could dither happily about a hundred different things I got out of it, but right now I'd like to talk about ME.  Because I never, ever talk about MYSELF on here.

I promise not to whine about once a week on here, to no avail.  Every once in a while, I go through and delete a lot of sulky, meaningless posts that I've written. I do not enjoy the whiny side of my character.  I don't want to see the self-centred part.  But it is still very much there.

 I worry about what others think of me.  I worry that I am not interesting or original.  C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, says that vanity, always looking for the approval of others is rather pathetic, but that at least the vain person still retains some humanity because they still care about what other people think of them (as opposed to a prideful person who finds himself so fine that he doesn't care what others think).  I agree, but I'm not sure that I fall into this "humble fault" category anymore.

I compare myself to others obsessively.  It's ruining my life.  I get all despondent - "Oh, I'll never be any good at this" - and decide not to even try.  I get all worked up about how I'm stuck in a rut and don't actually move anywhere as a result.  Worry does nothing good for me.

So, I am seriously, SERIOUSLY going to try (praying like mad) to change this particular part of my character.  If anything will pull me down in life, this is it.

This is rather minor, but I think one way I can take a step in the right direction is by using this blog as a place to talk about things I enjoy.  Things outside myself, as opposed to imagined inferiorities within.  I would much rather read a blog about music or books or crazy things that happen at somebody's job (it's like a soap opera, I'm telling you) than the rather greasy whining of some lower-middle-class American who is being held back by nothing but her own timidity.

The other day, at a church thingy, a lovely, lovely woman told me (in her adorable broken English), "My son, he worked at an oil refinery.  He would come home just covered... black.  But one day, his boss saw him and told him to come talk at his office.  So my son goes.  And they say they will pay for him to go to college.  He was forty years old.  Now he train the new workers." Then she asked me how old I was.  She looked at me, and held out a hand. "Twenty? You have the world in the palm of your hand. You don't worry about what will happen.  You get wherever you are meant to go."