If You’re Living Life Safe, You’re Doing It Wrong
Your imposter syndrome stands between you and a life of fulfillment.
I’m convinced most — if not all — of my writing is garbage.
I’ll complete a piece — a story, an article, a journal entry — and have the audacity to think, “This is kind of decent, Jas. Well done.”
I’ll do an initial comb-thru afterwards, fixing obvious grammatical errors or simplifying sentences that are difficult to read and understand. I take a rag and polish the rock that is my creation. Is it a gem? I’m not sure. It takes a fresh, surprised mind to make that kind of judgement. I need to read it like I didn’t write it. That takes a day or two — from the moment I type the last character to the moment my eyes pan the first word in the first sentence.
Most — if not all — of the time, I pick up the rock I’d polished a day ago and realize it wasn’t a rock at all.
It was a tiny ball of shit.
“Dammit,” I mumble. “What were you thinking?”
The glimmer of pride I’d felt mere days ago evolves into a visceral cringe that reverberates through my body.
My imposter syndrome uses this as an opportunity to interrogate me with a handful of questions it doesn’t require answers to:
Who the hell do you think you are?
What makes you think anyone would want to read this?
Why did you think this was good?
Don’t you think you’re a little out of your league here?
Sorry — who did you say you thought you were again?
Writing isn’t the only time my imposter syndrome rears its head — it’s anytime I venture into something foreign that piques my interest.
Starting a podcast.
Moving provinces by myself.
Doing front kick-thru’s at the gym.
Wearing my hair a different way.
Hitting the “submit to publication” button.
I battle the voice of doubt on a daily basis. You’d think I’d have gotten used to the consistent ridicule by now, having figured out a way to mute it or prevent it from berating me altogether. But like my existentialism, my imposter syndrome grows side-by-side with me. It knows how to slip under my skin and press buttons I told myself didn’t exist.
I am not immune to the voice that tells me to quit while I’m ahead.
Because we share each other’s company often, my imposter syndrome forces me to re-evaluate why I’m doing the things I’m doing. In the midst of being interrogated and holding up the ball of shit/gem up to the light to figure out what it truly is, I ask myself:
Why are you writing?
When I first started getting published with Medium not even two months ago, I thought I had to write to teach. An “article” implies you know something others don’t.
I’m a 28-year-old, single, university dropout who doesn’t talk to her family — what could I possibly teach? If anyone had to be taught something, it was me. Had I taken the route of speaking in a voice that didn’t belong to me, my doubt would have superseded any inclination to continue.
I write to take a snapshot of something I learned.
I write to leave a breadcrumb trail for future Jasmine to remind her she’s felt that way before.
I write to express.
But most of all, I write because it’s fun and I write because it instills a passion in me like nothing I’ve ever known.
If writing wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do it. If uploading podcasts wasn’t fun, I wouldn’t do that. If sporting subjectively absurd hair and attempting uncoordinated movements in my workouts weren’t fun, I wouldn’t do those things either.
I get swept up in the current of belief that my fragile ego can only be handled by the things it’s good at. It’s too dangerous to explore outside the wall of defence I’ve built — rejection, failure and heartbreak are lurking just beyond. It’s safe inside. I can wrap my glass ego in familiar lies masquerading as comforts, and dispel potential threats.
But my wall doesn’t just prevent me from going out and getting hurt — it prevents anything better from coming in.
Yes, I’m scared to endeavour down paths that are alien. My entire being calls out for the false sense of security I’ve called home.
But I fear something more — in making the conscious decision to leave stones unturned, parts of me will go unexpressed. They will remain hollow echoes of the woman I could have been, had I decided to live a life filled with risk. They will remain dormant inside me and ebb away into nothingness when I do.
I used to think I cared about what people thought of me. I do — to a degree — but that idea isn’t as much of a deterrent in the pursuit of self-exploration as I once gave it credit for. By taking risks, by doing the unconventional, by writing and being abhorrently vulnerable, I expose delicate and wary desires to live a truth that hasn’t yet been lived.
I reveal my truth.
Will I live it? What stands in my way?
Judgment from the audience that picks apart the pioneer behind the protection of their wall isn’t what I fear most. If that was my sincere problem, I might have a reason to quit. People are mean — but I hit “publish” anyway.
No — it’s my “kick me out at the knees,” self-depreciative, non-constructive criticisms I’m most threatened by.
To identify with people’s projections of you long enough for them to solidify gets easy after a while. You take what you’re given and you might put up a fight now and then but for the most part, you accept it. You own a closet of roles you slip into depending on your company. You’re never naked. But staying swaddled in comfort comes at a price — never knowing the you that is you.
If you decide to break out of the shell cast upon you to discover who you really are for the first time, it is you that will stand in your own way. You will tell yourself it can’t be done. You will tell yourself it’s not worth trying. The constructed you that fits neatly into everyone’s lives will persuade you that this is who you must be! You’ve been it this entire time! And if your imposter syndrome yells louder than the voice that demands the truest version of you, you might just be persuaded.
I don’t write — or live my life — for others and I get questioned on why I am the way that I am. Sometimes people do be makin’ me wonder. But it’s getting past my imposter syndrome — that wants to protect me out of fear — that is the biggest hurdle. I make a deliberate effort to venture beyond my wall and I’m surprised by who I become each time.
So whether my polished rocks reveal gems or shit, both are slivers of an authentic Jasmine. They’re born from a place of passion and I never hide when I bring pen down to paper.
I’m as naked as naked can be.
I will always stand on the precipice of personal exploration — I will never know the full extent of who I am. But I’m on a mission to lose everything I thought I knew about myself to come into the me that is me.
One written word at a time.
