Thursday, October 30, 2008

Talking To Myself

I'll never forget when I first discovered that I talk out loud to myself. Actually, I didn't discover it, it was pointed out to me. I was sharing an office with someone who kept asking me what I said, and of course I had no idea I said anything at all. They would get really confused, because they were never sure if I was talking to them, or asking myself why my computer didn't know that I didn't mean to erase half my files. They pointed out to me that I did this all the time. I apologized, but it continued. That was many years and a whole lot of self-conversations ago.

I still continue to talk to myself, but now I am quite aware of it - at least some of the time. I don't share an office, so there is no one to bother, but sometimes I get looks when I am riding my motorcycle. I forget that there are no windows to block my observations of how other people drive. Trust me on a motorcycle you have plenty of opportunities to closely observe other people's driving - too closely.

I don't get too hung up about talking to myself. I limit it to mostly one way monologues - not too many full conversations. Sometimes I deliberately talk out loud. I find if I have to remember a phone number or some brief piece of information, I repeat it out loud and I can hang on to it for a few minutes. I get some pretty strange looks running out of my office repeating over and over again - 33" by 48", 33" by 48", 33"x ahhhhhh! What was that number?

I am in introvert, so I spend a lot of my time inside my head. Most of the time I enjoy my little self talks. We all talk to ourselves, maybe not out loud, but we still generate a lot of self-talk. Because I spend so much time in my head, I have to watch my self talk. It can get quite negative. It's rather funny when you think about it. I have an opportunity to brag about myself to myself and instead I choose to self-destruct. It really leaves you wondering what is wrong with us. I think Mark Twain said it well - "Life does not consist mainly—or even largely—of facts and happenings. It consists mainly of the storm of thoughts that is forever blowing through one’s head." My storms border on hurricane levels, maybe yours does too.

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