Alana+H’s+Final+AmEx+2013+Speech

=The Value of Uncomfortable Moments=

 Last weekend, I went to my first interview. In the rush to get out the door before I was late, I pulled on a pair of not-yet-dry pants from the dryer.  Have you ever worn damp denim? It is a feeling more horrid than any other.  And it was a terrible mistake. As I sat in the coffee shop, shivering with nerves and cold, unable to wipe my now clammy hands onto my still damp jeans while my breakfast threatened reappearance, I watched my fellows being called, one by one, to the back of the shop.  The majority of the people waiting were older than me, college aged at least, with resumes that looked far more impressive than mine from the side glances I could manage, and all able to fill out the “previous employment” part of their applications. I felt like the stupid little kid way in over her head, which did not help with the queasiness that was starting to take the form of the US gymnastics team doing back flips in my stomach. I’m pretty sure at this point, my face had reached a never before seen shade of red. Resisting the urge to run out of the shop and never return, I actually managed to make it through the interview, in which I was ok, but nothing spectacular and I do not expect to be called back.  I’m not telling you this story to make you pity my failing attempts at getting a job. I’m telling you this story because I believe there is an underappreciated value in our most uncomfortable, embarrassing, horrible moments.  Yes, feeling ill before an interview with damp denim sticking to my legs may not rank high on the list of most horrible moments, but this was merely the most recent of a lifetime of uncomfortable experiences. And as hard as it can be to believe sometimes, I’m fairly certain we’ve all got a short novel’s worth of such incidents, whether it be tripping in the middle of the hallway, waving back at someone you //thought// was waving at you, or yelling out something you didn’t know could be considered an innuendo out in the middle of your eighth grade history class. Yep, that last one also happened to me. The problem is, we tend to only regard these moments with disdain and refuse to look for anything to learn from it or find at least some humor in the pain.  Think about your worst, most gut wrenching uncomfortable moment. Yeah, sure, thinking about it might make your skin crawl with embarrassment and shame, but is there really nothing to be learned there, some lesson hidden in the incredibly repressed memories of humiliation?  Embarrassment usually arises from a failure to subscribe to self-set (usually impossibly high) standards. We shouldn’t let our embarrassing moments be a time we turn to self loathing because we do not fit those standards, but a time we realize how ridiculous and unfeasible those standards are.  Guess what. We are only at the beginnings of our lives, and that short novel of embarrassing stories will probably grow to be several volumes. We should learn to accept this. In the America I grow old in, I want people to be able to accept their humiliating moments and learn from them, heck, even laugh at them.  I’m not going to say “I am the master of this and you all are just doing it wrong and should follow my example” because frequently, I don’t regard embarrassment with positivity and reflection. Every time I feel uncomfortable, my default is to curl up in a ball on the floor and pretend I do not exist and block the memory entirely.  But what will that do for me in the long run. Nothing. Sitting in your room rolled up in a ball pretending you don’t exist while repressing embarrassing memories has been proven time and time again to only result in nothing. Why not learn a little. “Oh, that wasn’t a good idea” or “I need to realize not to take everything so seriously.”  The reason why I was so embarrassed and flustered at that interview was because I set too high a standard for myself. I expected myself to walk into the shop being the most confident, qualified person applying. The kind of person who knows when she needed to start washing her clothes for an interview. The kind of person who can speak loudly and clearly. The kind of person of person you’d actually trust making your iced coffee. But it was my first interview, and was going up against people who had actually done this before. And so, even before the interview started, in my mind, I had already failed at my own preconceived notion of success in that particular situation.  Maybe I’m saying we all need to give ourselves a break when we aren’t completely up to our personal standards, or maybe I just want there to be a little more positivity or introspection. Maybe I just want people who are able to laugh at themselves. Because we are just going to continue having such moments. There is really no point to losing our heads over one uncomfortable situation, because there is just another one on the horizon. And even when looking at it fully, at every angle, there is //no// morality tale or story of what better to do next time, and it was just a freak accident or a terrible day, at least it will probably be a pretty funny story in a few years. = =

=Cite Your Sources=

[]