The Pitfalls of Self Deprecation

People were always telling me to cheer up.  It got pretty annoying.  "Smile, God loves you," they'd say, as if I didn't already know that.  I didn't see anything in the Bible about facial expressions.  The only other people I knew of who seemed to smile all the time were cultists and people who were trying to get me to like them, like salesmen and politicians.

Maybe I should back up a little.  There's a saying: "Actions speak louder than words."  I had decided at one point that because I wasn't so good at words that I would let my actions speak for me.  It's particularly hard when you're growing up in a society of preachers, who practice the exact opposite: distract people with your words and you they won't notice your actions.  It fits in with the Biblical notion that Christians should be humble: another concept every preacher I'd ever met seemed to have a problem with.  Really, if you read the gospels, it's like every other verse is about humility, but I never seemed to see it in any of the Christians I went to church with.  They never stopped talking, always trying to be the center of attention.  I spoke only to communicate, and then only when I had to.  I always tried for the most humble spot: the foot of the table as it were.  I let other people lead, let them stand in the spotlight.

Then, there's the sense of humor issue.  I read an article that says that we are the same people we were at age 7.  In other words, all our personality traits are set by that age.  I grew up with a set of heroes that influenced my sense of humor toward the dark and self-disparaging.  Charlie Brown was probably the first, along with Winnie-the-Pooh's Eeyore and MGM's Droopy cartoons.  So early on, I developed this "woe is me" demeanor that was supposed to be funny but it never really worked that way.  People seemed to think that I really was depressed and tried to cheer me up.  This led to my actually being depressed because no one thought I was funny.

So here I am in a job situation that relies almost completely on self-promotion.  Career advisers talk about things like self marketing and getting noticed.  Here I am, trying to let my actions speak for themselves and what have I really accomplished?  I'm a thinker, not a talker, and I really do value actions over words.  I just wish others would do the same.