I have received a number of great compliments from many of you lately and appreciate every single one of them. A lot. Thank you for taking time out of your day to brighten mine.

But there is another side of me that I want you to know. The small and petty side. The weak and selfish, impatient, disappointed, and angry side. The Stinking Thinking, Woe-Is-Me, nothing-is-good-enough side. I too often have an awful case of Baditude. I just made that word up (at least I don’t think I’ve ever heard it before), but it pretty accurately describes a side of me that wants to scowl and frown in the face of incredible blessings. A side that makes me not even want to be with me in those moments.

A side that my friends and family love me in spite of–and for which I’m eternally grateful. But a side that blog readers who’ve never met me–which is nearly all of you–may never see if I don’t share it with you too. I’m not sure as to all the reasons why this is important to me but I know that it is.

Perhaps it is partly because I’d feel like a phony if I was liked for only the best parts of me. Perhaps it is like a bazillionaire who seeks love but is never quite sure if the people in his life are there because of his or her wealth or because of who he or she truly is.

And while part of me says I shouldn’t care what others think, the truth is that I do. I care a lot. But I’d much rather risk having people dislike me for who I truly am than to have them like only a false vision of me.

The truth is that I’m humble, but I’m also arrogant and sometimes even vain. That I’m a hero and a coward. I have both great and petty thoughts. I sometimes think I’ve got life well in hand and sometimes think that I don’t have a clue. I’m generous and selfish. Wise and foolish. Proud and ashamed. I write to give and to get.

This hasn’t been an easy post for me to write, but it is perhaps one of the ones most important for me to have written.

Thank you for reading it.