Compliment and Castigation

"I can live on a good compliment for two months" - Mark Twain

There is nothing - absolutely nothing - like the power of a compliment, especially a compliment which one did not expect to receive.  It is simply amazing how such a thing can radically change one's day.

The funny reaction that I noticed when it happened (and yes, I actually did get one) was my own interenally response.  There was an initial burst of "Wow, that's great!  Somebody got it and liked it", which was almost immediately followed a second burst of a dampening of the spirits and justification of why the compliment was really not that big a deal, sort of a "Well, I suppose so, but..."

It was fascinating to watch, this internal discussion of point and counterpoint that occured with myself, as if I was a third party observing from the outside:  the one person, happy and reveling in an earned reward, the other person reminding them how little they actually did to earn it and that it didn't really count anyway.  I do not know that I have often been conscious of this interaction - or that I could watch it as a third person.

As I mulled it over last night, what I came to realize is I tend to do this a great deal to myself:  I consistently find ways to make things like compliments small and find reasons why good things like that are either undeserved or simply not that big a deal.  That strikes me as very odd, considering the fact that those are the sorts of things that (at least I claim) I would like more of in my life.

I don't know that this sort of thing rises to the level of a true self hatred; it does not seem nearly that severe.  It just seems to be more of a grumbling presence, someone who has determined that it will not be happy and therefore all around it will not be happy either, a sort of dour companion that (if I think about it) I have had hanging around with me for a very long time.

I am thinking, perhaps, that it is time I gave this fellow a vacation and see what his replacement is like.