Sure, on most days, I go around trying to tell everybody that they are, indeed, good enough to deserve all the love that they get from those around them. But I also go through days when I find myself second-guessing my abilities as a writer. I’m pretty certain that we all feel like there are people who are better at doing what we do, so much that we don’t give ourselves enough credit for trying to work for the kind of expertise that others may have.
And it’s not just about my writing abilities. I sketch something random and immediately, I see fifty others who are so much better at it than I am, or I take a beautiful photo and I realize that it might not be something that others would appreciate simply because it isn’t as good as a certain XYZ person’s. But what’s this competition really about, anyway? Is it because we are still learning to do something that others are already good at? Is it because we wish we more resources to actually be able to realize the ideas in our heads? Or is it just us being overly critical of ourselves because, in all of our awe for what everyone else can do, we have forgotten that we could be good at something too?
This morning, when my friend told me that I should recite some of my poetry some time at the events that happen all over the city, my initial reaction was “Oh, Hell no!” simply because my poetry is very basic, or so I would have myself believe. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to actually be confident about reciting my poetry to the world someday, it’s just that until now, it had never occurred to me that maybe I am not as terrible at it as I think.
And the only way I’m ever going to find out, the only way any of us are going to find out, whether we really are good enough at what we do, is if we take that leap of faith and keep doing what we love in the hopes that we’ll learn something new and improve somewhere along the way. I keep telling myself that the only way I’ll ever find out if I am good at writing is if I write every single day and still have something to say the next day. Maybe I’m getting better because it has only become easier to do with every new day, but you be the judge of that!
I’m so grateful for the people around me who remind me that I am good enough when I don’t really feel like it, and I am glad that they give me right kind of push at the right time because, after all the second-guessing, it really is nice to have somebody believe in you and your abilities in whatever you do in life. Maybe I will recite my poetry at open mic events someday, I don’t know if that is on my 2020 agenda. Maybe I will write more of it if that’s where my current path leads to. I don’t know yet.
But if you’re reading this, I want to remind you that there will always be somebody who is better at something than you are. That does not negate your talent or hard work. It just means that they work on the 50th floor and you’re just on the 25th for now, but keep working harder and throw all of your passion into what you do, and I promise you that you’ll get there soon too! Your competition is not with those who are better than you; the only competition we’ll ever have in life is between who we are today and who we’d like to be, the deciding factor being how willing you are to work for it.
Don’t lose heart. You are good enough. All of us are. We just need to work a little harder to scale the heights that we so desperately want to go to.
Cheerio! Xx
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Yours truly,
The Shubhster.
Featured Image by insung yoon on Unsplash
The Shubhster Diaries 
I hope you don’t put it off any longer. I hope you recite your poetry someplace this week! Putting it off just prolongs the discomfort. You are good enough right now.
Writing this brought back a memory to me that might be helpful to you. Early in my profession I worked at the University of Washington and I sometimes traveled doing talks. That was something that I was very nervous about. There was one workshop where the man in front of me was shaking his head no throughout the whole experience. I was a basket case imagining what he was thinking. At the end of the lecture he came up to me and said that what I had said was so interesting and that it was new information to him! That memory has helped me so much in the decades since then.
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Thank you so much for the kind words and for sharing your story with me! I am glad you’ve found your confidence in sharing your thoughts with the world. You’ll be happy to know that I have decided to go ahead and recite my poetry very soon! Thank you, once again, for encouraging me! Xx
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I still have fear of public speaking in most situations but I take the attitude of “feel the fear and do it anyway”. That’s a name of a book and it’s a really good one. I’m really glad to hear that you are going to recite your poetry soon, very soon! That will certainly help reduce your fear/worry.
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