I remember at school once being told to...

...blow my own trumpet. Now how on earth was I supposed to do that? I've just been reading CLP's blog with all the messages of support for Gazza, and one near the end (as I read just now) said this:

"It may not be the cause for his troubles, but one of the contributory factors must be our country's inability to applaud success. From school age when we're told not to brag about winning, through to adulthood when we're not allowed to 'blow our own trumpet'.

"The tabloid press embody this way of thinking - all too keen to pounce on anyone with any amount of success and rake some dirt or fabricate some damaging story. And what makes it worse - this rubbish sells newspapers." (PeeBee on CLP, 22nd Feb)

I remember one day in secondary school our lesson in PSHE was about writing your Personal Statement to go in your Record of Achievement (do they still exist?). We were encouraged to "blow our own trumpet" for the main reason that nobody else will blow it for you. I had no idea how to blow my own trumpet. I'd learnt not to brag, I'd learnt to play down my achievements, I'd no idea of the achievements of others so I had nothing to aim for to compete with until the completion of an achievement was announced at which point I'd think, I could have done that, how come I didn't know about that?

We had to give our testimony the other day in the Joining In course we're doing with church, and I know I'm hopeless at the moment at giving my testimony. I am just hopeless at talking about myself and my past, unless I'm sat at a keyboard and can write and delete and write some more and edit heavily. Probably I should've done exactly that, and brought my script with me to the course but I didn't. I'd heard a testimony the previous week and it had inspired me because the person hadn't talked much about their life BC, although they had told us where they were from and their brief life history. They focussed on their life since being saved. Now usually, when I am asked to give my testimony, I say much the same thing and talk about a point in my life which was pretty low and talk about how God pulled me through. But this time I just didn't was to focus on that at all - it wasn't something I wanted to dwell on or re-visit. It's not that I want to start fresh here, it's just that I feel that I've moved on and at some point in the future I will be able to incorporate that period much more succinctly into my testimony.

Anyway, I babbled. I babbled and skipped and hopped here there and everywhere and so still nobody really has any idea of who I am. I am just hopeless at telling people about my past, my achievements and what I can do. Maybe I fear being shot down. Maybe I fear being asked to do something based on what I've said, only to discover that I'm not as good as I thought I was. I think that's my main fear. Not being as good as I thought I was. I think that fear is something that holds me back at lot of the time and perhaps now I've properly identified it I can start to work at solving it and getting fixed.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm thinking that maybe the reason that my memory is so shocking and why it takes so long for me to remember what I did the other day whenever anybody asks me, stems from this inability to tell people about myself. I suppose that keeping a blog - a journal that, theoretically, anybody in the world could read if they wanted - is a small step towards telling people about myself. But it's all so current. Maybe I'll attempt to write my testimony - my life story, concisely - again one day.