Tonight's Entertainment.

So here is my reflection on a phenomenon that I think occurs in part due to an awful High School experience, really low self esteem, and an early departure into the real world.

In a class of 30 eighteen year olds, I shiver and stutter through a 4 minute presentation on campus safety. Delivery is great, visual aid is killer, I know the topic upside down, and I'm feelin' good. So why is there a jawbreaker in my throat? That's 8am...

By 11am I'm at work. In a conference room with 10 forty year old millionares who are successful in what they do, really important, and could potentially make me a lot of money. I then proceed to pitch a project that could cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I haven't even had my morning tea.

So I realize that TRUE: I have spent more time with 40 year old business men in my life than I have with peers, and TRUE: I am passionate about what I do and therefore more comfortable with speaking on it, and TRUE: teenagers tormented me all throughout high school, but...this is just a little too extreme to be called normal.

The room full of my peers (the eighteen year olds) are all there to learn and grow together. But for some reason, all I see and feel are 36 pairs of critical and analytical eyes, 18 brains picking apart every word I say, every hair on my head, every blemish on my skin and ever rag on my body, and one massive threat to my mental homeostasis.

Perhaps its the lack of expectancy that I feel in the room with the 40 year olds that serves to be more of a comfort. Perhaps it's that I know that they know what I'm capable of. Perhaps I'll never really put my finger on it. But what I have learned is this:

Behind each one of those faces, whether an eighteen year old face or a forty year old face, is a mind not belonging to you. They don't know your troubles, your insights, your experiences. A person is a person, and as long as you know yourself well enough to know where you stand, you won't think the person laughing is always laughing at you.

"No one can make you feel inferior without your consent". Eleanor Roosevelt.