Everytime I hate you I think of you first

We are a nation of short poppies.

Between the blogs I read yesterday, and an email from a good friend this morning, it's got me thinking about this.

I am awful to myself. I would never dream of saying the things that I say to myself to anyone else. It would be horrible. Even when I thoroughly dislike (I rarely hate) people, I could not bring myself to say things that mean. And I have to actively try to be kinder to myself. It's a freaking struggle. And at the moment, I might say I'm at a 90:10 ratio or cruel:kind. The sad thing is, that seriously skewed ratio is a bit optimistic and  is still quite a significant improvement. It's part of why I find it so hard to accept compliments; I don't believe that nice things could possibly be true because I sure as hell do not see myself that way.

As my friend pointed out, "we're trained not to puff ourselves up, to put ourselves down and not get a big head". And NZ as a country is particularly guilty of this. It's the phenomenon of Tall Poppy Syndrome. As a nation, we are quick to knock people down, and reluctant to bolster them up. And if you are actually good at something? Forget about it. You only have to look at the way we treat our national sports teams to see evidence of this.

I remember if I got good marks in an exam or assignment at school, feeling the need to downplay it because it wasn't cool to be smart or to do well. No one wanted to be that "arrogant" or "cocky" confident person who is proud of themselves.

And yet, other countries, such as the USA and Australia, are full of those kind of people. Which is possibly why we have such a rivalry with the Aussies, and such a general dislike for a lot of Americans. Maybe we find their self-confidence threatening? A bit of research (okay, I just used Wikipedia) shows that it is primarily the UK, Canada and NZ that identify with tall poppy syndrome. In fact I remember talking to an American girl and mentioning it to her and she had no idea what it was, and thought it was a craziest concept, but one she had noticed happening while she was here.

I don't see it stopping anytime soon. But it's important to be kinder to ourselves and replace negative thoughts with positive ones, or at least to prepare a kind thought after each mean one, to balance it out and even out that ratio a little more. Speak to yourself like you would to a friend, bolster yourself up, take some pride. We are actually all awesome, even me.