My Dirty Little Secret – Jen Sincero | Wine, Women and Chocolate

We often talk about how we must seize the opportunity to learn from our failures.

But what about seizing the opportunity to learn from our successes?

(Trust me, they’re equally as….enlightening.)

For example, I’m THRILLED to report my latest success: We’ve just gone into the third freaking printing of You Are a Badass and it’s only been out 3 weeks!!

I’m NOT THRILLED to report that its runaway success has brought to the forefront one of my most loathed/embarrassing habits, a habit that has gotten me into trouble in the past by:

• Causing me to appear snobbish

• Unwittingly hurting people’s feelings

• Making me fear that I’ve lost my mind

And, yes, I’m thrilled (not thrilled to the point of all caps yet, mind you) to report I’ve learned an extremely valuable lesson from it that I hope will help you feel great about who you are and where you are in your life and that I will share with you now.

Ahem.

Due to the large and early success of my book, my publisher has expanded my book tour to all corners of the country. This is excellent because I love to travel, speak in public, see old friends and meet my fans, but I also dread it because I have this major…issue? Blind spot? Brain damage?

I forget people’s faces.

Yes, I know, you can’t remember anyone’s name to save your life. Big deal. I go the extra mile and not only forget your name, but forget your freaking face while I’m at it.

I have forgotten the faces of people I’ve met over and over and over and over again. No matter how hard I stare, desperately searching for a birth mark, a hairlip, a chipped tooth, anything to affix my memory to, I’m probably going to go ahead and totally forget what you look like. Especially if you should do something mean like cut your hair or shave your beard or show up in some out-of-context situation.

It recently happened to me (I think) at my Los Angeles book reading. I lived in L.A. for 11 years, making it very treacherous territory for me and my brain, and while I was there, working the crowd, chatting up and thanking everyone for coming, I introduced myself to some guy, asked him his name, shook his hand and forgot about it until about a week later when I was suddenly seized with horror…

I think I know that guy! And not only that, I think I forgot who he was the last two times I met him!

Kill.

Me.

Now.

So if you’re reading this, Craig, please know:

1.) I apologize
2.) You are not alone
3.) I actually DO remember you (if that was, you know, you)

I proceeded to beat myself up and worry about how many other insanely sweet and supportive people I’d met before, who took the time and the major trouble of driving through L.A. rush hour traffic to come to my reading, and who I treated like strangers.

It seriously made me sick to my stomach. For days. Until I finally remembered:

I’m doing the best I can. I am a good person. I excel in other areas.

It reminded me of the unnecessary torture that we are so fond of putting ourselves through and that is so simple to avoid. It works like this:

I could carry around this thing from the past that I can not change and choose feel like a turd all day, every day.

I could let it go.

Tah dah!

It is THAT simple. And don’t create drama over how “hard” it is to let things go either. Put effort into forgiving yourself (chapter 15 of my book), love yourself, think of the many reasons you are awesome instead of why you think you suck, breathe deeply, do good things for others, let it the hell go…

How much we enjoy our brief visit to this planet is determined by how we choose to perceive ourselves and our realities.

So choose wisely.

SPECIAL BRAD PITT NEWS FLASH:
I just learned, thanks to the generous and magazine-reading commenters on this here blog, that Brad Pitt just outed himself with the same facial blindness problem I have. Me + Brad = Samesies!