Reputation Calls...

A few weeks ago I made a comment to Brent that he took in a completely different way than what I meant. In fact I meant nothing at all by it, but I didn't push back because I could see exactly why he had taken it the way he had, and it was a reputation call. It has been years since I earned it, but I did earn it so now I live with it and try not to live up to it.

Reputation calls happen in sports all the time. A player that tends to foul a lot will get called for a foul even if they didn't actually foul the player THAT time. But because they've fouled so often and tend to foul freely they no longer get the benefit of the doubt in a close call. If you saw someone across the line from Ndamukong Suh grab their ankle you were going to assume he stomped on them before you ever saw the replay. Because he stomped on people. A lot.

I've talked before about my reputation in high school. A large part of it was actually my sister's reputation just attaching itself to me. She was a terror. Like if you saw a high school bully portrayal like her in a movie you would think it was over the top. I had to change typing teachers freshman year because the one I had been assigned to she had punched when she was in school and for some reason Mrs. Johnson had not yet gotten over it. Of course changing teachers didn't really work considering the teacher I switched to knew exactly why I had switched, but I tried.

But she had a giant reputation as a badass. And the kids who were freshmen when she was a senior were seniors when I was a freshman, so there was overlap. I might have skated by unnoticed except I got in one small fight my freshman year and as it was with a junior boy, in front of a classroom of mixed grade students, I got the reputation tag. I was assigned my own vice principal for my four years and had to check in with him quite frequently to make sure I wasn't starting my own reign of terror.

And for the most part I didn't. But the people I went to school with were pretty sure I had. I heard stories about fights I was in that I knew I wasn't, about things that I had done that I knew I hadn't. But I let them go because having that reputation meant people, for the most part, left me alone. And when they didn't, well, I had been Highland's most feared bully's favorite punching bag so I did know how to fight. Quite well. And a lot of anger (understandably) that just sort of seeped out of me. Most likely I would have been intimidating without the added reputation but with it I was pretty fucking scary.

People who know me now, for the most part, never see that side of me. It's still there. I used to make posts on Facebook about Good Denise and Bad Denise. Bad Denise is just high school me without the mellowing years. She's still pretty scary. But for the most part I try to not let her have the driver's seat anymore. I don't want that to be my final reputation.

And that's the challenge. We all have reputations. We all have things we've earned through past behavior. And some of it doesn't really fit anymore. All we can do is keep doing better and hope that people let go of that old reputation, but most likely it will always be there lurking. You earned it, you have to live with that.

But what about the things we believe about ourselves that just aren't really true? Like me realizing the other day that though I consider myself to be unathletic and not someone who enjoys working out I've worked out consistently for DECADES so clearly I'm at least fairly athletic. Or that I'm not good at math. While holding a degree in accounting. What I'm not good at is Calculus and Trig and those crazy things, I'm good at practical math. There are other things but this is about you, not me.

Yes, you.

What old behaviors are you holding on to as part of your personal reputation that really aren't you anymore? Things you used to do, or not do, that aren't true anymore. Things that you think about yourself that nobody else would. Take a look at who you are, who you really are, and stop making reputation calls for yourself.

It's hard, I get it.

But you deserve it.

Your past brought you here, but you aren't just your past. You are everything you learned from it, and all the ways you changed because of it. It made you, but it made you better. Remember that. You are more than your old reputation. Let that shit go when you think of yourself.

See yourself for who you really are.