I am the oldest of my sisters, and just like most first born children, there was always this expectation of me to set an example. I was supposed to do everything first and be the most brave, responsible, and nurturing. I think as a child, I held up to that standard pretty well. I got up first to get ready for school. I started waking up to my own alarm at around age 8 pr 9. Then I would get my sister up and fix her breakfast. I made sure she got ready in time, helped her in school and with her homework. I told her all about what it was like to be in my grade, told her what to expect and gave her advice. I didn’t really have anyone to give me the detailed advice I gave her. I had to experience it first. Being the first born out of them was something I identified with.

But the funny thing was, that even though I had always been seen as the “leader of the pack” among my sisters, it wasn’t that way otherwise. I was never the top student in class, or the lead singer in the choir,  or the lead part in the play. And I wasn’t the leader among my groups of friends either. I didn’t know why. I was always out shined by people with stronger personalities and abilities. I didn’t mind it. I didn’t always want all that pressure and extra attention. I was ok with sitting back and observing others being the leader. I was actually kind of relieved that I got to relax and let someone else do the work, I didn’t want to be a leader anymore and I started to identify more with being a follower. That characteristic became more prominent the older I got.

Then as a teenager, I became pretty interested in the zodiac. I would read all about my sign, Leo. There it was again. The Leo is of course the lion. And what is a lion? A leader. Nearly every single description of people born under the Leo sign was supposed to be a “natural born leader” as well as “dramatic, dominant, independent,  loves the spotlight and attention.” Anything that had to do with being alpha.  I always thought, “Well that doesn’t describe me at all!” I began wondering if God messed up in creating me under that sign.

However, it seems that as I go through life I am still expected to be in some kind of a leadership position, and I usually try to avoid it. How am I supposed to be a leader when I don’t even like to walk in front of other people? When I worked at Pizza King a few years ago, I heard from a co-worker that it was in talks of offering me a supervisor position because one of the main ones was leaving, which many of my co-workers at the time sought after, but it scared me more than anything. I wondered if I could handle it or like it. The extra pay and hours sounded nice, but I still wasn’t sure if it was going to be worth what all I knew they had to deal with. Well it turned out the girl didn’t leave after all so I was never officially offered the position, and I was actually relieved.  At my job now, there are team leaders who basically train new people, and every year, I think, they appoint new people who have been working there for a while and they trust  to become a trainer, and I had a feeling for a while that they might ask me to be one, and I tried to show my lack of interest in that. I just didn’t want to have to worry about showing anyone the ropes and wondering if they were understanding what I was doing and saying. I didn’t want to worry about taking the responsibility over the work efficiency of someone else or anyone blaming me if a trainee screws up or slacks around. All I want to do is go to work and worry about my job only, and then leave.

I wonder if my lack of interest in taking lead on things has to do with my hang up about decision making. A great deal of being a leader is about making decisions, and as I have talked about before, I am not particularly good at making decisions, or at least I am not confident about them when I face choices. Just the other day, I was sitting here with my boyfriend and we were trying to figure out what to eat. We knew we wanted pizza, but it was a matter of getting a carry out pizza or buying one from the grocery store. We were listing our options and I exclaimed, “Ugh I don’t know! Too many choices!”  He stated, “Actually there’s only 2.” I jokingly rebuffed, “That’s still too many,” as I smiled and then somehow not long after that we just finally went with getting one from the grocery store. I realized how silly it was that I had trouble making a decision about pizza, and when there were only two choices, but I was making it seem like a much bigger deal.

Something recently has got me thinking about this for some reason. With it being the holidays and all, I am always bummed because I miss the days when my immediate family were together. Now everyone has spread all over the US and is doing their own thing with little means or incentive for getting together. Maybe it bothers them too, but I feel this instinct that it’s my job to try to rally everyone up again and draw us closer together again, literally and figuratively. There are some issues between a couple of my family members, and I have always tried to encourage a makeup between them, I  have been told that there’s nothing I can do. But still, I feel an obligation. I feel like, if I tried, I can have influence to help things between them, and ultimately all of us. But to do that, I am going to have to take the lead, and for this, I am not scared. This isn’t just something I feel like I have to do, but it’s something I want to do. Okay, so I understand I can’t make any of them do anything or make up, but I am willing to try to help encourage better understanding and communication, and then they can make the decisions on their own about how they want to get along.

This is the first time I feel like I actually want to take the lead in something. I think this and other issues than I am passionate about, I am not as reluctant to be a leader so maybe I am starting to break out of the shell from being a cowardly lion. I still need to work on my decision making, so I am going to start with small things, build my confidence in those things and move up to bigger decisions. Hopefully I will one day successfully become the lioness I was born to be.