Day 24: I'm thankful for...

confidence.

I am a very shy person, I hate talking about myself and I get anxiety attacks thinking about being in a social situation even when I know all the company.  In college, when I joined my sorority we were forced to learn how to mingle and make small talk with people we had just met.  I learned how to ask a lot of questions and learn a little about a person in less then 10 minutes (and how to make very quick judgments on that person whether or not they would be a good fit for our group).  It took my anxiety level to the max.  In those minutes, I was being judged and I was judging someone solely based on first impressions.  One particular event we were preparing for was Rush.  We were very excited because one of the potential candidates was a huge legacy of our sorority and the President was especially wanting to make a good impression so she decided that she would spend her 10 minutes with the legacy.  On the day of, all in our formal dresses, we lined up so that as each candidate walked in the door, we would one by one grab the next person and lead them to an area in the house and visit, our President was in front of me.  I grabbed my girl and we made off to a set of empty seats and spent our minutes talking about her and what she had done over the summer.  When our time was up the girls left the house and I was immediately approached by our board about my visit.  They wanted to know everything that was said.  When grabbing girls, the count was off and the girl that I had spent my 10 minutes with was the legacy they had been anticipating.  I was worried and upset that I had ruined something that we all had been working for. 

Not only did the legacy join...
but she also wanted to be my "Little Sister".   

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
Eleanor Roosevelt