Some people are always trying to be the center of attention. They want everyone to look at them and listen to what they have to say, no matter how insignificant their point may be. Well, that’s not me. I don’t need to call any special attention to myself.
I don’t know what it is about me, but I’ve always kept a low profile. Maybe it’s humility, maybe it’s self-confidence, but whatever it is, one thing’s certain: I’ve never felt the need to be the star. If other people want to fight for the spotlight, they can. It’s a free country, right? As for me, I’m content to stand quietly in the wings while others get the glory.
Though I certainly could, I’m not going to go on and on about my love of travel, Indian food, ballroom dance, mah-jongg, and tennis. Or go out of my way to bring up my prize poinsettias or impressive collection of signed R.C. Gorman lithographs. Sorry, but that’s just not my style. And why would anyone want to know that I’ve raised three wonderful children, Benjamin, Jonathan, and Robyn, or that I volunteer for the Red Cross, or that my husband and I enjoy taking trips to Prince Edward Island every summer? And what’s more, who on earth would care about my committed work with the blind, my opposition to the death penalty, my support of a flat tax, or my strong pro-choice stance?
I can’t stand it when people are self-centered and feel inclined to yak incessantly about themselves, so I’m certainly not going to do it.
Take last week’s school-board meeting, for example. The first thing I did when I got up to the podium was make it clear that I wasn’t going to stand up there and self-indulgently blather for an eternity. To do so would be ridiculous, because I value the thoughts and opinions of other people just as much as my own. I wouldn’t waste my fellow citizens’ time going on about nothing just to draw out every last second of my precious, fleeting time in the spotlight. No, sirree. Wouldn’t do it. No way, no how.
But that’s just how some people are: They’re in love with the sound of their own voice.
Fortunately, I’ve never had that kind of desperate, almost pathological need to be the center of attention, to be heard by others no matter how insignificant the content of my message. Some people!
