Beginning a new school year and learning the ropes as the new editor of the Optimist has been a very humbling experience for me.

In times like these, you find out exactly how much you don’t know. You get lost and show up to the wrong classroom. You forget to respond to your name when attendance is called. You can’t find a seat in Chapel.

It’s times like these when I have to come up with ways to bolster my confidence.

So I have a a few things I like to remind myself of to increase my feeling of self-worth.

I like to remind myself I can lick my elbow.

Rumor has it only one percent of the human population can lick their elbow. I don’t know if that’s true, but if it is, that’s a pretty small number. I like that. That makes me feel special.

One day in high school, I woke up with the ability to lick my elbow. I’m not really sure what changed. Maybe my forearm shrank over night. Maybe my tongue grew. Who knows? But to Trisha Hill, the lady who told me when I was eight-years-old she would give me $25 for licking my elbow, I’m expecting a check in the mail.

I remind myself that, at a young age, I became a landowner. A couple of years ago, I purchased an acre of land on the moon from a website. For the low price of $18.95, I became the owner of land in the Sea of Vapors, a crater on the moon. They sent me a certificate of ownership, a lunar citizenship card and a map of my land – all very official. And I’m pretty sure I have mining rights. I feel good about this investment.

My class was the champion of the 5th grade kickball tournament. As I recall, I played a hand in the team’s success. I like to think I scored the winning run. That builds my confidence.

But, looking back at my list, I’m starting to realize maybe these shouldn’t give me a confidence boost at all. Maybe I need to find a more recent, more respectable point of pride.

Anyone interested in forming a kickball team?