Adventure 36 - Inspiration

Which should be driving me to write the 3 papers I need to get done this weekend.

At any rate, one of my friends, who sits next to me in bio and is in the ROTC program on campus, invited me to a presentation at the university across the city. It was a little awkward at first, between us getting there a teeny bit late and me being the only civilian in attendance, but the presentation itself was definitely worth going to. I don't remember most of the exact details, but the lady who presented was a professor at West Point who served quite a few years in the Army and did a lot of cool stuff, including research on gender and power, which is what her presentation was about.

It was cool because even though there was obviously a lot of military influence, what she talked about had a lot of applications in the civilian job world and as a person in general, like knowing your strengths, knowing your boundaries, building a support network, etc. What really spoke to me, though, was her emphasis on not apologizing. I am a compulsive apologizer (the friend who brought me actually gets really pissy when I apologize for anything, so when this got brought up, he looked right at me). I always feel like I'm hassling people. But apologizing makes it sound like you don't think you matter and in turn makes you look bad, plus you shouldn't have to apologize for being you.

Of course, I could come from that lecture thinking that I can now pull all sorts of crazy stunts and not have to apologize for them. Instead, I think I'll take it as a chance for me to revamp myself and maybe *le gasp!* grow some self confidence, because I shouldn't have to apologize.