You Are Worthless - Own It

I know who you are because I am you.  But, because I know who I am, I am not going to continue to be you without realizing who I am and what I can be.

Let me explain.

You are good at what you do.  But, because life is life and "nobody is perfect", you make mistakes.  Not many mistakes, just some.  And yet, the majority of the time, you succeed at what you do.

But those few mistakes make you feel like a miserable failure.  News flash:  You're not.  You're human.  I know.  It's a terrible cliche and yet is has so much deep meaning. 

Being human means that you get to be an idiot sometimes.  If you look at your accomplishments and see only the black blotches, try and look at the whole picture.  That picture is much brighter than the few issues that continue to haunt your brain and pepper your nights with horrible dreams.  Everyone makes mistakes.  It's how we make up for those mistakes that really matter.

But, what if your last mistake led to a failure in your life - like a job loss?  Are you a miserable failure then?  Are you beating yourself up because the most recent event in your life led to misery? 

Don't.  Look at it this way:

A baseball player goes up to bat.  He swings through the first pitch.  Then, the second.  On the third pitch, he is determined to focus his eyes on it a bit better and does so.  The pitcher throws a change-up, completely blowing his timing.  The ball player takes a miserable looking swing and hears the scraping screech of the umpire as he calls him out - the last out...of the ballgame...of the series...the World Series.  The season is lost.

That baseball player has two choices.  First, he can listen to all the fans (yes, those bitter types with short memories (unless you're Steve Bartman)) and all their ridicule, looking at himself as a miserable failure.  Or, second, he can treat that strike-out as just one of the many poor plate appearances in the season - which just happened to coincide with the very last play of the season.  Then, after accepting it, he can look at the whole season and see that his team not only made it to the World Series, but was the best team in their league, in their division, and one of the top two in the country.  Someone had to lose.  There is always next year.

It's called life.  Own it.

Are you the butt of all jokes?  Really?  Is it only perceived?  Or is it reality?  In either case, work on becoming closer to those that actually love you for you.  And you won't have to look far for just one person.  Just one.  You can build more friendships later.  But that one person can be your rock to build your self-confidence upon. They already love you so leaning on them isn't really necessary.  Just talk to them about life.  They'll let you know what is special about you. It may also be helpful to work with that person to create some self-deprecating humor about yourself.  But don't believe in that humor.  Just do it to make others laugh - owning the jokes that you think others are telling.  It defuses their weapons, imagined or not.

You will still have feelings of inferiority.  But, as you learn to embrace your mistakes and poor decisions as simply a part of life, and build good into your life from them, they will begin to affect you less and less.

Write me.  I understand.

Love,

I. C.