If, as is often said, we are our own harshest critics, then praising ourselves must have some merit. I once spent a long, long time beating myself up about mistakes that I had made, finding fault with myself and feeling guilty about the way I had treated others. I still feel that that self-criticism was a justifiable and necessary exercise, one that has brought me to the point at which I find myself today.

As I write this I am listening to one of my favorite CDs, on which is a song that I have always associated with a past event that was the cause of a lot of pain to me and others. It made me think of the different me's - me then and me now. While not impossible, it is extremely difficult to lie to ourselves and I think I am being honest with myself when I think that I am not the same person I was ten, or even five, years ago.

I am happy with this change, because I feel that I have retained all that was good about me then, but have changed, and in many cases discarded, aspects of my younger self that were destructive. But, it bothers me that those who only knew me then probably still think of me as I was, rather than as I am now. I am not completely sure why this bothers me, but perhaps it's because I want people to think well of me.

It of course makes sense that we retain our last image of someone, or something, as we experienced them. How would we know otherwise if we have not had opportunity to experience the person anew? But when I feel that I am still being judged as a person I no longer am, I feel a certain sense of unfair discrimination and want to prove my critics wrong and perhaps surprise them in the process.

Lest I create the impression that I think that I am all good, let me state that I am still a proud and stubborn man, albeit tempered by experience, and perhaps therein lies another reason I am bothered by dated judgments of who I am. I am however, proud of whom I have become. And relieved!

30 May 2004

Dion Marc Delport

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