The Hidden Danger in this Common Expression
When did you last say this?
The Thursday night Mariachi band thrummed through the restaurant, and salt-rimmed Margarita's sat sweating on the table in front of us. Exhaling wearily, my friend and newly-minted entrepreneur confided to me.
"I paid a few thousand dollars to this consultant. They're a savvy marketer, and they made big promises, but that's turned out to be smoke and mirrors. They can't deliver, and my money is gone. I fired them today, but the money I've already spent is in the wind." She exhaled again. Finishing with, "I'm an idiot."
The look on her face conveyed anguish. She was tortured by what she saw as a stupid mistake. Shaking her head, she opened her mouth to speak again, and I knew what was coming.
"Don't you dare say it!" I cut her off in a friendly but serious tone before she could get the words out.
"You're not an idiot, and I know what's coming next. Don't say it because it's those words are a scam."
How would you finish this sentence?
I'm a shameless
— Star Wars fan.
— After-dinner flosser.
— Long bath taker.
Where's your delicious shamelessness?
I'm a shameless black coffee drinker, book reader, and F-bomb dropper.
You have a shameless advantage
There's someting liberating, almost gleeful, about declaring, "I'm shameless!"
Saying you like or even love something doesn't have the same punch. Shamelessness has defiant energy. You're saying, "I do this, and you can't make me feel bad about it."
Have you noticed we're shamed constantly?
Who hasn't been on the receiving end of, "Aren't you ashamed of yourself?" When we forget to brush our teeth, wash our hands, share our toys. It begins innocently enough, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and shaming starts when we're kids.
Young and without critical thinking skills or boundaries to protect ourselves. There's nothing to stop us from absorbing this belief: when you do something "wrong," the proper…
