Bragging Rights (and Wrongs)

List 20 accomplishments. Twenty. Accomplishments. Wow -really? That was the assignment from the career coach. No, it will make sense, she assured me. I wasn't worried about making sense. I was worried about twenty accomplishments. Me - twenty accomplishments. I've done some pretty neat things, sure; I've been known to pull off a minor coup or two when the chips were down. But twenty accomplishments? Isn't that bragging? Isn't that rather immodest?

Why is it so hard to talk about what we do right, but incredibly easy to list off 200 things we have done wrong? As I sit here, I can hear those voices - teachers, parents, grandparents - who were so quick to hush me whenever I thought I had done something especially clever, something good, something right. The dry sarcasm, the gentle put downs, even the outright anger that too often met any declaration of a victory. I'm not alone in this. I hear it from friends, I see it in friends; compliments are met with a deflection, greetings are returned with some long suffering reply. "How are you today" is most often answered with "hanging in there" or "not bad for a Monday" as if we are afraid of being happy.

Heck, if we can't even admit to feeling particularly peppy, or that we like our latest hair cut, or that we had fun last weekend how do we ever manage to write a resume? Because that is all about our accomplishments. No wonder it is so hard to find a job for some of us.

The story we tell about ourselves should be be balanced, certainly. But the story of our lives should leave a little room for bragging. A lot of room for bragging, really, because if we did it and did it well, it isn't bragging. It is just the truth.