Celebrating Myself

You know, the people whom I work with, have come up with this fantastic contest called ‘Celebrating Myself’ for International Women’s Day 2012. Yep, you’re right! I am talking about the Women’s Web’s contest right here and since yours truly is the Content Manager around these parts, I am not eligible to compete – which means no gift vouchers from Zivame for me either.

Not that I hope to win amongst all the great entries that we get, but this time every single participant gets a prize! Sigh!

But sad as that may be, it is no reason not to celebrate myself, is it? Although my husband is already apprehensive that I might be afflicted with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, here I am, throwing humility to the winds, ready to find out what is it in me, that is worthy of a celebration!

I recently saw an ad for a movie called ‘London, Paris, New York’ – and I was like hey! I’ve been to all 3 places! That set me thinking to how many countries I’ve travelled to so far. Of course I know that there are far more better travelled people around and the world has a zillion more places to discover – but having been to 6 countries during the time period when I was 23 – 25 years old, is a slightly big deal, is it not? At times I’ve travelled with friends, at times with family and at times by myself; and I’ve completely enjoyed all my travels!

I’ve lived a rather sheltered life and travelling really exposed me to a lot of different cultures, broadened my horizons and taught me a few lessons along the way. Travelling really changed my thinking and my perspectives – it gave me a new found confidence and taught me to become self-sufficient. It taught me to to enjoy my company and gave me the guts to head out by myself – whether for dinner, movie or shopping or to simply pay bills and run errands, and to nonchalantly ward off inquisitive glances and nosy questions. And what’s more, it also taught me to survive alone in a tiny, studio apartment for months together, without a TV, without a computer/internet and without another living soul! Cheers to me, I say!

Moving on, I am quite proud of the fact that I found it in me to change careers to do what I really want to do. I’m so glad and thankful to be where I am today, doing what I do; afterall, “To love what you do and feel that it matters; how could anything be more fun?” – Katherine Graham (of the Washington Post). And when work doesn’t feel like work anymore, so much so that, I am sitting and writing this well into the eve of my weekend and not resenting it one bit – isn’t that a good enough reason to celebrate myself?

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And on that positive note, now that I’ve blown my trumpet loudly enough for the day, off I go to kickstart my weekend! Let the party begin! Woohoo!

*Photo credit: Feral Indeed! (Used under a Creative Commons license)

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