I’ve decided to start publishing some of my drafts. I have dozens if not hundreds of posts written in draft that I never quite finished, wanted to tweak, didn’t hit publish. I’m going to start digging some of these out and putting them under the harsh light of day. I originally wrote this sometime last year.
Do you ever sometimes wonder, how did I get myself in to this?
And I’m not talking about the times when you’re in a situation you didn’t want to be in, like a boyfriend you’ve kept around for too long or committing to something you didn’t particularly give a hoot about in the first place but got pressured in to doing.
No, I’m talking about being in situations where you are exactly where you dreamed about being.. and then you wonder if you can do it. School. Job. Giving a presentation. Whatever.
You wonder if you’re good enough. If you’re smart enough. Oh yeah, you know the next line.
It’s an affliction I’ve lived with since I can remember. I get somewhere that I have longed to be and then I panic. Why am I here? I don’t know anything. People are soon going to find out I’m a fraud. I did it when I got picked to be on the debating team in school. I did it when I went to university. I did it I got my first job. And my second job. And every job. I would virtually paralyze myself with fear. Fear that I didn’t know what I was doing. Fear that I would make a mistake that would actually blow my cover and confirm to the world the fact that I truly didn’t know what I was doing.
That stupid fear, that idiot anxiety, has kept me back. It’s kept me from truly succeeding at many things. (That and the ADD, but I only have time to blame all of my life’s problems on one particular issue today.) This brand of anxiety is particularly self defeating, because it keeps me from doing anything to make myself better. It prevents me from taking action, from reaching out, from taking a stand.
I’ve noticed a lot of people lately saying they feel the same way. And when I see it from someone else’s lips (well, fingers, but whatever) I can see it for what it is. Lies. Lies an anxious brain tells itself out of fear. You’re in a dangerous place! Retreat! Retreat! It’s a bizarre manifestation of the fight or flight syndrome. The world might find out you’re fallible and you don’t know everything! Maintain your facade! RUN!
Except it’s BS.
Who among us hasn’t made a mistake?
Who among us actually knows everything?
NOBODY. Nobody. Nobody at all. There is not one person out there who knows everything. The difference between them and me? They can ask questions. They aren’t scared of looking stupid. Because they know that asking a question isn’t stupid. It’s just a question.
Give yourself a break. Sit down and warp your brain for a minute in to looking at yourself the way you would look at someone else. Why would that person be afraid of asking a question, of making a mistake, of exploring the world around her as far and thoroughly as she can?
You are where you are for a reason. Ask. Adventure. Screw up and make the mistakes. Because the really surprising thing about making mistakes? Is that you discover that people care a lot less about it than you think they do. People are way too busy worrying about their own mistakes to care about yours. So go ahead. Take a chance. It’s the only way.
