...to see ourselves as others see us. (Robert Burns)

This couplet came to mind immediately when I read my horoscope for today. I feel like someone knows me better than I realized:

You are apt to take a step forward today, and find that someone is standing exactly in your way, Sarah. The key is to not plow right over that person like a bulldozer. Make friends with him or her and consider why they are standing there in the first place. You are apt to learn a great deal about yourself and why you think the way you do in the first place. Question your own beliefs just as much as you question other people's.

I do that. I see someone or something athwart the path and I just bulldoze right over them, or it. "Wall? What wall? I don't see no farking wall" and off I go, either to jump over it, climb it, or just run into it headlong.

I'm a person of great enthusiasm and great determination and a bunch of smarts. I also happen to have the annoying habit of being right a lot of the time (and not very fond of admitting it when I'm wrong), and not terribly tolerant of people with sloppy thinking habits. Illogical "arguments" drive me crazy, such as the one that goes, "I read it in a book; therefore, it's right."

But I'm at my most obnoxious when crossed. Scenario: I'm on a roll, I have set my strategy, got fired up, collected all the equipment or resources that I need--and something comes to plop its little behind in my way. Instead of saying (metaphorically), "Excuse me? Is there something you need? Something I forgot? Another task more important than this one?" I have a habit of just bulldozing over any and all in my path. Mea culpa.

I figure I'm not dead yet, so I may learn to slow down and listen and learn, even in the midst of the fire of my latest enthusiasm or adventure or task, eventually.

Or maybe not. Excelsior!