I HAVE this problem. And let me tell you, it sucks and I made SURE my kids didn’t inherit this behavior from me. As an artist I really have to toot my own horn, and I was raised to think that tooting one’s own horn was pretentious, and that if you painted it or did it, everyone would miraculously notice your amazingness and throw money and attention at you.
yeah, no. That’s not how the world really works, and I had to get over it because it really hurt to watch the people who hustled get advantages that had nothing to do with talent (or less to do with it).
What I do is to take myself out of the equation and pretend like I am creating a publicity flyer for someone who isn’t me-what do you want to know about them, what cool things have they done, etc. That takes the squeamishness and the feeling like I’m hustling something, and it’s been working really well for me.
Yeah, I have a bit of that as well. My caveat is that I will up and leave online communities if it becomes non-productive or , um, yucky. My neighborhood NextDoor has gone to hell in a handbasket over the past few weeks-I’d unsubscribed from everything except for emergency announcements (and was enjoying the peace and quiet!) when I ran into a neighbor at the new burger place in town and he was telling us how crazy it had gotten on NextDoor and had I seen it? I was like, nah, I’d unsubscribed. But of course I went and looked and sheesh!
So yeah, all or nothing for me. One poster here is reaaaaaaaalllly trying my patience though. Think calm thoughts…think calm thoughts…remember young people can be stupid…
Thanks @Ynotgo@STEM2017 and @2muchquan! At least those questions will get DS thinking when he gets around to asking for LORs. As far as I know his GC or school doesn’t do anything proactively regarding this aspect of the college search/application process, so I’m trying to encourage him to do some of the things you all talk about instead of just sitting back and waiting to see what he needs when he finally starts to fill out applications, which will hopefully begin within a few weeks!
Re: ignore. I’m starting to get very curious @MotherOfDragons. I tend to stick to the same threads unless I have several hours to waste as I am easily distracted by conversations that have nothing to do with me or DS’s situation. I thought I had a guess about your ignored poster, but I don’t think that one could be described as a young person, so I’ll have to just wonder until I have time to explore some other threads.
Yeah, no worries, my issue is with none of the people on this thread; it’s cali cash. So young, so full of wisdom. Not. There are other posters who rub me the wrong way like Miami DAP, but I feel like that’s on me-that’s who Miami is, and she’s consistent with it. I just don’t agree with her. Cali, man, I just grit my teeth and skim past it and try not to be like “get off my threads, foolish child.”
Lol about the ignore. If I am on a post that has those really nasty or annoying people, I typically stop reading the thread. I never knew you could ignore. My S knows that he has an “ignore” button for me, his loving mom!
QOTD: What is the funniest, quirky-ist, astounding, or brilliant quote from your child? For S, he told me when he was 4 and I was trying to get his attention and said “Did you hear me??!”, he responded with “I heard you, but I wasn’t listening.” That is the story of our relationship. I am the parent in the Peanuts cartoon going “Whaa, whaa, whaa…”
qotd: When DS was about 4 he told us about “his brother” in South America who lived between the mountains and ocean, near a jungle. He would wonder what this brother was doing that day, and bring up the brother sporadically over weeks. But he never played with this South American brother like kids do with imaginary friends. If I asked about it, DS would tell me he lives very far away so of course they didn’t play together. Still no idea where that came from.
