ATHANATI

We were assigned a group task in my Social Policy class this afternoon. The lecture was on the topic of wellbeing. The task was to discuss what humans need to achieve wellbeing. All the obvious things came up, such as food, shelter, health (physical and mental), education, a reasonable income, security, social contact and self-esteem.

I’m guessing I must be the only Psychology student in the class, because when I brought up self-actualisation, my group all looked at me as if I just farted. While I was explaining what self-actualisation was, the lecturer overheard me and praised me for bringing it up and “being deep”.

When she said that, I felt my face heat up and I felt a little like I needed to throw up.

The discussion continued, and even after the majority of my group decided that self-actualisation isn’t that important when it comes to wellbeing, the lecturer continued to mention self-actualisation as an aspect of wellbeing and every time she did, I got the blushed and nauseous feeling.

It seems I’m physically adverse to praise. I don’t like being singled out as someone with a good idea. Maybe because it means people may call on me for good ideas in the future when I have none, or maybe because I’m toooooootally humble and don’t like to be seen as “smarter” than anyone else. I’m not really sure. All I know is that it made me feel yucky, and I would like to avoid that in future.

I’ll just stick to proving myself in assignments where only my lecturer can see my fancy pants psychological terms.

Am I the only one who can’t help but go firetruck red when I get the thumbs up from a teacher? Do any of you have issues with being praised in front of your peers?