Bemusement

It is an interesting sensation to be trusted or praised. As an example, one of my lecturers recently told me quite genuinely that he would be happy to give me a professional reference now if he thought it would help me get a job, less than a year into study. A long term reader of this will possibly know that I don't often consider myself deserving of this sort of thing and so I was quite bemused - especially since the subject that I had him for was the one that I rushed most at the end. When someone gives you something positive that is undeserved because they think you deserve it, something doesn't quite seem to gel in your mind. Nagging in the back is the thought that somehow this person is deluded "What if they find out? I'm basically just a fraud." comes to the front. Either that, or you get a sense of embarrassment related to modesty.

It's interesting that in a day and age when we are told that not only do we have to put ourselves out there for any kind of exterior improvement, but that we also deserve every positive thing that swings our way, many of us don't feel comfortable with this approach. It's even more interesting that there is a clinical term for this sort of thing - Narcissism - and it is considered a mental problem (albeit an untreatable one and therefore one that goes mostly ignored).
Which isn't to say that a good self esteem is a bad thing or that extroversion is a bad thing, just that people can get carried away in it.

Just something that made me curious last week.