I thrive on attention. I don’t like to admit it, but I’m the class-clown-wannabe who would do a backflip in the middle of a crowded mall if I wasn’t so self-conscious of my own narcissism and what other people might think of me.
So when people at work tell me I’m doing a good job, it does wonders for my ego. I get to come home and stroke it like a content puppy, murmuring sweet nothings into its ears and nuzzling it lovingly. “Goochie goochie goo.” But after a little too much of this, well, maybe my chin will start pointing upwards and I’ll grow a god complex. Who knows what comes after. Climbing the corporate ladder? Ugh. Wearing a suit to work every day? Is it possible? Thinking I’m better than I am? It’s horrifying, really, and when I catch myself getting a bit too opinionated and holding too high a regard for myself, that little bully I never had drops into my ear canal and starts putting me back in my place. “Hey, who do you think you are anyway?”
Listen, I’m not being self-pitying. My pride is a wriggling, monstrous creature hiding under tarps in a grain silo. How can I kill such a thing? All I can do is continue pouring seeds upon it, burying it back down deeper and deeper, and hope the irony doesn’t feed it before the food does. Until then, if you catch me about with split trousers and a straining belt, grab me by my suspenders and hoist me downwards to several pegs until I’m back at my own place. So help me god, I will be humble, if it’s the last prideful thing I do.
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