flichtish – adj. nervously aware how much of your self-image is based on untested assumptions about yourself – only ever guessing how you’d react to a violent thread, a sudden windfall, a huge responsibility, or being told to do something you knew was wrong..

I used to think I had all the answers and knew how I’d react to situations or what type of person I was.

I was a teenager. I think this view is fairly common among teenagers, but also in older people. I see too many people with confidence in how they’d react to an unknown.

And I see too often they don’t actually react that way. The more self-aware people recognize that their self-image was untested and wrong. The less self-aware people think the situation was an anomaly.

I know that until I walk a mile in my shoes in some situation, I’m very un-tested. I have a guess as to what my self-image is, but I doubt it is 100% true. As Mike Tyson says, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Flichtish is a recognition of that saying.

From the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows