I’m scared out of my effin’ mind almost every day.
{Photo via totalbeauty.com}
“I’m just gonna skip the small talk and jump right in.”
“Ok. Jump into what?”
“Tell me what you really think. Do you think I’m good enough to make it?”
He smiled eagerly with a warm excitement.
“I think you’re amazing and are doing something truly unique. So yes, I think you’re more than good enough (he seemed pleased with that comment) but I don’t know if you have the hustle to make it. Whatever that means.”
Silence.
I regretted the words as they poured out of my open mouth.
He wouldn’t ask if he didn’t want to know what I thought, right?
But maybe this was a fishing for compliments experiment, and instead of smiling sweetly with words of affirmation, I had just slapped him hard with my sincere avowal… sprinkled with a delicate uncertainty.
It’s true.
He’s phenomenal.
It takes more than being told though.
We all fear this line. The borderline of arrogant and self-assured.
But to be perfectly honest, if you’re a sensible person, I think those extremes are nowhere near each other. They are light years apart.
And the true great divide is a mountainous, expansive thicket of doubt.
What we really tackle every damn day is this undeniable black as death self-doubt that will never go away.
It keeps us humble, keeps us working, keeps us alive.
Or…
It eats away at every good thing we try to embrace.
There’s no borderline to cross. It’s a course of navigation through a vast wilderness where you can only rely on your skills, motivation, faith. Or suffer at the hands of whatever is lurking in the darkness.
And it should be no surprise that what’s lurking in the darkness is You.
Your revolting, nasty, caustic self.
Who wants to wrestle that to the ground?
But we say, “Hey, that’s ok,” because if there was a perfect certainty of anything, life would lose all meaning.
It’s the journey, not the destination. Right?
Therefore we set out across this trek with expectations. We may call them goals, but we want them, and therefore we expect things to happen.
We’re only human.
You’d have to be living a meaningless, empty, and negated existence if you don’t have any goals.
Aspirations.
Desires.
Intense yearnings of your Soul.
But as we travel deeper into the woods, the expectations we place on ourselves become heavy. We shed goals because they seem too far away, as we lose ourselves to the darkness.
And we sit down, our backs to a comfortable tree — with all our skills, our beautiful talents, our fading motivation, and wavering faith.
In this stagnant state of waiting.
But we’ve given away anything we could have wanted along the way. It was all too heavy.
So what exactly are we waiting for?
That’s the question.
For someone to tell us that we’re good enough, for someone to say we made it?
For someone else?
If I remember correctly, I’d walked into this forest alone.
My Dad used to always tell me to focus on what I could do, not what I couldn’t.
To make determinate choices.
And to never be dictated by fear.
But to be terribly candid, I’m scared out of my effin’ mind almost every day.
I’m scared of what I’m doing with my life, of what I’m not doing, of being too comfortable, of not having enough comfort.
I’m shaking with panic somewhere in the middle of this dark underbrush.
We all are.
However, I’ve come to acknowledge that my impulsive desire for clear immediate answers to the incessant questioning of self-doubt only pushes me further under.
So every day, I roll outta bed with a renewed sense of commitment to my purpose in this life, whatever it may be.
The alarm on my phone reads: “Get up, Jes. This is It.”
Because truly, it’s only ever gonna be whatever I make it.
And while I wait (im)patiently for indications of being good enough, my answers — because I have enough faith to know in good time (not my time) things can become clear.
I just have to keep moving.
Have to keep hustling.
That’s it! I’ve chosen to be passionately and intentionally joyful, instead of slightly depressed all the time.
Because I prefer to be happy and crazy rather than normal and bitter.
It’s a beast, but it’s worth it — this is It.
*****
{Let Yourself_____.}
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