Monday, January 14, 2008

Those little voices in your head

Inigo: Are you the Miracle Max who worked for the king all those years?
Miracle Max: The king's stinking son fired me. And thank you so much for bringing up such a painful subject. While you're at it, why don't you give me a nice paper cut and pour lemon juice on it? We're closed.
[knocking] Beat it, or I'll call the brute squad!
Fezzik: I'm on the brute squad.
Miracle Max: You are the brute squad.
Inigo: We need a miracle. It's very important.
Miracle Max:Look, I'm retired. And besides, why would you want someone the king's stinking son fired? I might kill whoever you wanted me to miracle.
From: The Princess Bride, (1987) 20th Century Fox. Screenplay by William Goldman

You know those little voices in your head?

No; not the ones that tell you to eat the last of the Cheetos, or the ones that suggest, ever so softly, that your sister-in-law's prune danish is in fact the devil's handiwork and should be dealt with by pounding it to death with the meat tenderizer that you keep with you for just such a crisis.

No; not those voices.

I'm talking about the ones that tell you that you're a fraud and that you have no business holding the positions of authority you hold and suggest that really, if anyone finds out how bleeding incompetent you are, they're going to drag you out into the town square and stone you to death.

Those voices.

Most days, I can keep them at bay. And some days, I can kick them in the shins and tell them to get back in their hole.

And then, there are days like today. Days when I can have a 15 minute meeting with someone who seemingly looks into my soul, plucks out the source of those voices, and brings them out into the open, screaming their foul message for me and everyone to hear.

The voices do not energize me. They do not challenge me to rise above. I do not feel compelled to beat them down.

I just want, instead, to crawl into a hole and hide myself away from the world.

I wish I felt differently.

I'm hoping tomorrow will be better.

5 comments:

winter said...

Kill the voices. Ignore them. They know nothing, they speak no truth.

Believe me.

Mike Carter said...

I know those voices, I live with those voices.

For me, I keep thinking of the old 80's tv show The Greatest American hero, where the main character has a super suit, but lost the instruction book. So often in my life I feel like everyone else got the instructions, but I never did.

Mermaid Melanie said...

Voices? Inconceivable!

ah... I have the same issue. Only mine yell at me. In front of company, making me drop stuff or act like a fool.

Be strong. They are nothing. Don't give them any more power.

bhd said...

So what I'm a Talking Heads fan? I say to myself:

"This is not my beautiful voice!"

Sometimes I believe it. You can too.

Anonymous said...

Those voices suck. Their permanent resident status sucks even more. Since there's no way to evict them, no matter how silent they can be, I fought fire with fire. I got a tattoo (well, a few tattoos) to help me remember what to say to those voices when they pop up.

If you're not into body art, might I suggest kickboxing? :lol:

Feel better, dear. *hug*