Surprise!

The first thing I want to do after a sedentary day at the office is to run. Today was going to be adventurous: I was going to explore an unknown, new-to-me route at Garden of the Gods. Crazy, I know. About ten yards in I discovered my legs felt more like a Clydesdale’s than my own. After 43 minutes of running and stopping and backtracking and cutting through hillsides of baby cacti and shrubs, I found the trail I needed and walked the last mile back to the Taurus. 

At the same moment I was blindfolded by a cobweb, I was asking myself a question. Why are certain character traits so much more revolting to me than others? Am I afraid that the one trait I despise most in other people is in fact true of me?  

Take self-centeredness and self-promotion, for example. I get sarcastic and roll my eyes when I see it. Is it because I am more self-centered than I’d like to be? I rarely update my facebook status. I often consider it one of the biggest "who cares?" on the internet. Last week I posted a link to my blog on my facebook page, at the suggestion of one of my friends. After he posted his blog on facebook and told me how many people had visited five minutes later, I put on my pretend look of shock and told him it was shameless self-promotion. And then I did it and felt queasy about it. I might do it again today. 

Here’s the catch: I think we all possess those traits we dislike in a style more pleasing to us. With self-centeredness, it’s not that I don’t want to be noticed; I do. We all do. But I prefer to be stumbled upon than force everyone within the sound of my voice to notice. Same with my blog: I’d rather it be found by accident and enjoyed as a pleasant surprise than to see that you visited because I told you it would be a pleasant surprise. See the difference? It’s not a surprise when I tell you it’s going to  be a surprise. I think the moral of this story just became my love for surprises. 

The End.