A Midlife Crisis is Preceded by a Pre-Midlife Crisis. I sure hope both are solved before my After-Life Crisis sets in.

There comes a point in everyone's life where who they thought they were and where they thought they were going is introduced to who they really are and where they've been. Sometimes the attendees of this introspective double date are truly surprised at how much they have in common. More likely, however, they realize that although they have similar family roots, they're quite different from another. Sometimes, as was my case, who I thought I was and where I was going sat silently and stared blankly across the table at who I've become and where I'd been. Everyone involved had nothing in common, not even enough for small talk.

Executive Summary: Before you think this is going to be a self-loathing tale ending in ambiguous redemption, let me tell you that today I am wicked happy that I am who I've become instead of who I wanted to become. Besides, I am quite sure that I do not have the necessary writing skills to pull off "ambiguous redemption" anyway.

Having a over-inflated opinion of ones self can come in quite handy. Especially when you are growing up. If you had this rare form of mental delusion that I had you'd know what I mean. Growing up was pretty easy because of it. The delusion is quite simple because it involves only two tenets. Tenet 1: You are the best at everything you try. Tenet 2: You are smarter than everyone else. Everything bad that normally happens to kids is no problem for someone with this delusion. Public speaking jitters? No problem. You're the best public speaker around (T1). Nervous about a final? No problem. You're smarter than everyone else . . . even the teacher (T2). Feeling awful about failing that final? No problem. The test was obviously crappy because failing a real final would be a violation of both Tenets 1 and 2. And so on and so on. Like all good delusions, you never realize you are actually delusional. It is your reality.

Where did all this overinflated ego come from? Rule #1: Assign Blame. Like all good whiners, I would love to blame this on my parents. Looking back, I believe my parents were truly ahead of their time on this one. Ground Breakers in the cult of generating self-esteem in kids they were. A movement that in ten years time would be sweeping the nation in every school, my parents developed on instinct and practiced it on me. No "know it all" child rearing books for these guys. Perhaps all of their parenting techniques were just great big experiments done on my siblings and me. I guess that would explain the Skinner box they bought for my sister one Christmas.

But the blame doesn't really lie with my parents does it? I realized over a long period of time that the blame rest squarely on my shoulders. My failure to question the sacred tenets of self kept me in my delusion for a long time. Only when a preponderance of real life evidence pig-piled onto the Tenets 1 and 2 did I start to question their validity. Maybe the Tenets just got worn out and decided to retire. However it happened, I started coming to grip with the fact that there are huge numbers of people smarter than me and that I am not the best at anything. And boy, what a relief. I didn't grasp how tiring this delusion was. Coming around probably made me a little nicer to hang out with, but you'll have to be the judge of that.