Unbridled Confidence

There was a Seinfeld episode where Elaine was to read a manuscript for an interview with a publishing house.  Billy Mumphrey.  Of course, Elaine didn't read and had to rely on Kramer for his analysis of the manuscript.   Elaine sort of held her breathe and closed her eyes during her interview when she said that Billy Mumphrey suffered from "unbridled enthusiasm".  It turned out to be a home run.   

My partner noted that I recently blogged that his family had a negative trait and to be fair, I should blog about a negative family trait from my family.   I guess he didn't read the entire entry because if he did, he would know that the blog entry wasn't really about his negative trait.  However, fair is fair.  

When he challenged me to write about a negative family trait from my family, I could only think, "which one?"  No family is perfect similar to no one being perfect.  I have too many faults to count and could probably write a novel on all my negative family traits and only scratch the surface.  

So, I tried to focus on the one family trait that was the most pervasive and damaging.   Like all traits, it has both served us all well and also was one of our biggest achilles heel.   All of us have Unbridled Confidence.    We were raised to think that we were always right.

My oldest sister was always the most beautiful woman in any room that she was in.  Whether she was in a room of four women or a conference with 1000 women, all eyes were always on her.  She was that beautiful.  I was with her several times when she would walk in a room and people were literally gasp, she was that beautiful.  Now that she has passed, I often look at pictures of her.  She was gorgeous, for sure, however, I now think that she was just really confident.  I think she was raised to be so confident that she put that out to the universe.  That confidence allowed her to get a job once her children were raised.   She got an amazing job head of a government department and supervising 50 staff after only having the experience of being a mother.   It was that confidence, no doubt, that allowed her to obtain that job.  So, what was the problem?  My sister was so confident that when she did struggle, she wouldn't let people in to listen and try to help.  Her confidence made her feel like a super hero and she felt she would be letting people down if she showed that she was human.

My other sister also has unbridled confidence.  She follows her passions, she learns her skills, and she blazes her own trail.   She also believes that she is always right.  Quite frankly, she usually is right, however, sometimes she makes mistakes.  Most people make many mistakes every day and accept that as a fact of life.  To my sister, it is an actual crisis when she makes an occasional mistake and takes her a very long time to recover.  

My oldest brother was so confident that he mapped out his whole life plan when he was a teenager.  For the most part, his confidence led him to complete this life plan as scheduled.  The more his life plan was proceeding as planned, the more confident he became.  The problem is that he is so confident that his world doesn't allow room for those who don't share his same confidence.

My other brother has enough confidence for an entire family.  I think, if he wanted, he could lead a cult.  He is so confident and charming.   The yang to his ying is that he believes he is right so much that he can't accept that someone may disagree with him.   He stopped talking to one of my sisters when he was about 15 years old.   He has done everything in his power to avoid being in the same room with her and in the last 30 years has only been in the same room with her about half a dozen times, and then, he still is determined not to talk to her.  He has missed out on a lot by doing this.  My sister is amazing and is well worth being proud of.  I remember growing up and wondering would possibly could have led to him cutting her out of his life.  He told me he would tell me when I was old enough to understand.  I knew it had to be something big.  I remember finally being old enough and able to hear the story.  It took a lot of wine before I was able to get him to disclose.  He took a lot of deep breathes and then told me the story and waited for my dramatic reaction.   I said, "and then.."

He told me that was the story.  I couldn't believe it.  My brother had the confidence to cut his sister out of his life for a trivial comment.  I also have unbridled confidence and told my brother that he needed to grow up.  Then, he cut me out of his life.  

And, yes, I have unbridled confidence for everyone else.  I can advocate for anyone; I can get behind any cause; I can fight anyone else's fight.   I have the confidence.  The problem is that I can't stand up for myself.  

Every family is complicated and every family has its problems.  If we didn't, network television would likely not exist.  Thing of all the sitcoms based on family dysfunction.  Most families actually embrace their dysfunction and laugh about it together.  There is no one on the planet who believes that a family is perfect.  We all have a choice.  We can acknowledge our negative family traits and find the positive in it or we can deny that these exist.  I urge everyone to let go of the notion that their family is perfect and to join the majority.  At the very least, we have more fun !