No, I didn’t misspell the first word of my first post on my blog. Complement, as very excellently put on the wikipedia article means “something that together with another makes a complete whole, something that supplies what the other lacks.” That’s the idea I’m trying to get across. Don’t put up a front for yourself, be who you are and you’ll find people, places, and things that complement you. When you go through every day looking for things that will portray you as something you are not it’s counter-productive to promoting your self image. I’ve had discussions with lots of people that seem to be confident when I first meet them, but they’ll leave small clues after an extended time spent getting to know them that they aren’t really what they make themselves out to be.
Now, you may be asking yourself “Why am I taking advice from a 21 year old?” Go ahead, ask yourself that. Now I’ll answer your question. I’m happy. The reason I’m happy is because I don’t let things get to me like they did when I was in middle school and early high school. Something clicked inside my psyche that changed the way I looked at myself and set goals for myself starting for me in 11th grade. I found myself surrounded by people I enjoyed being with, and they complemented my style. I’m a self proclaimed geek and I’m proud to have that title. Even ‘nerd’ is a complement to me when used in context (which simply means that it’s the truth). To give everyone out there a better understanding of why I’m perfectly welcome to these terms, I’ll define them as follows:
Geek – someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
Nerd – someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
Dork – someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.
For me, it’s computers and networking, photography, audio production, and sometimes cooking that make me a geek as well as a nerd in subjects like computers, the internet, and networking. I take offense to being called a dork as a blanket term because I’m fairly social. I’ll readily admit that I do have some dork that shows on limited occasions, but I’m usually being silly or I’m in a bad mood.
All that being said, the point is accept who you are for what you are. Being passionate about something is what it takes to be successful and adopting that to your own reality will only make you more confident in your abilities and take you far.
Tags: comfort, happiness, success
When not spending time behind a computer screen bringing you his latest blog posts; you might catch him playing video games on his PC; eating/cooking something in the kitchen of his house in Northwest Georgia; watching movies from his Netflix queue; volunteering for the Boy Scouts of America; fueling his wilderness interests by hiking, camping, backpacking, rafting, kayaking; sustaining his established hobbies in Amateur Radio, videography, photography, or music; running his DJ business with his brother as a partner; or hanging out with his friends doing any number of fun activities. 