Never Being Good Enough
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Some days, I just don’t know what to write about. I feel like I should try to be productive, and then I remember what my therapist told me.
“Should” is a death sentence. It’s a cognitive distortion for a reason. I have to change my language. I could be productive. There’s nothing that says I’m not being productive. I just feel like I’m not doing enough. Like I’m never doing enough.
In high school, I was a dance major. One day in my junior year, we all sat down in a circle ready to do a writing exercise. Our teacher passed out individual sheets of paper for us to write on. She gave us the prompt: What was one thing you’re afraid of every single day?
A few minutes passed as everyone wrote down their fears. I considered this. What was I afraid of on a regular basis? I was afraid of spiders, but it wasn’t an active fear. It’s only when I see them that I freak out. Heights? No. Eventually I was able to settle on an answer.
We gave our slips of paper out and my teacher redistributed them so that we would have another random person’s fear. We went around the circle and read them out loud.
Many kept to the traditional fears like spiders, snakes, and heights. Then, I finally heard mine spoken.
Never being good enough.
If there’s anything that I’m always afraid of, it’s that I’m not good enough. At anything. I wasn’t good at dance. I wasn’t good at school. I wasn’t good in social circles. I wasn’t good at anything, certainly not good enough.
And that follows me every day. What if I’m not good enough? I fear my writing isn’t good enough. That it’s bad and nobody will read my writing.
I’ve worked hard to overcome this fear. It’s not as crippling as it once was, but it’s still there in the recesses of my mind. It’s like a chant. Not enough. Not enough. Not enough. Never enough.
Putting myself out there has never come easy to me. I’m an introvert by nature and I value my peace of mind, which means I do my best not to disturb it. That is, so long as it’s not disturbing itself.
But if I’m always afraid to put myself out there, then I never open myself up to the possibility that maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I am good enough and I just can’t see it.
Often, we can never see the best parts about ourselves. You get too stuck in yourself that you can’t see the very things that make you beautiful.
Our fears have the tendency to run rampant. It makes sense. Fear is supposed to alert us to danger and keep us alive. But it’s not supposed to keep us from living.
I can’t hide in the darkness forever, however tempting it may be.
