Lately I’ve had the distinct feeling of being Not Good Enough. It visits me at random moments, like when I was standing next to Josie at this strange French concert she took me to last week, where I was surrounded by men in leather jackets and scarves and pointy shoes watching strange French women sing and dance. Right as I was watching all of the strange, strange people around me, a pang visited me, square in my gut and whispered, “You suck.” That was fun.
It’s been visiting me more often than not. I go around with the pang of “you suck” or “what do you think you’re doing?” and “you are definitely not good enough” as I drain the pasta for dinner or help with math homework or fold laundry and take a bath or read something ridiculous about Jamie Fraser in an Outlander book, and I don’t know why.
I keep floundering in my writing. I’m revising my book for submissions to publishing houses, and as I rewrite, I keep getting the pang. “This is not good enough. This is crap. Stop it. Look! This is no good! Give up now! What are you even doing, pretending to be a funny writer lady?” and then I revise it again, only to the same result. I keep yelling at my kids, and thinking, “This is no good. If I knew what I was doing, these kids would never be yelled at.” I keep messing up so many things, and the pang just grows and grows.
And then I think: why me? Why do I deserve a shot at book publishing and mothering and being a wife and all of the other things I’ve been given? I’m clearly not good enough. Look at the mess I’m making of things! I keep trying, and I keep messing up. And then I want to stop, and to cry, and to give up. But mostly, I want to get rid of the pang.
I want to get rid of the pang so badly, and so this is my pep talk to myself. I don’t really want to give the pep talk. I want someone else to give me the pep talk, to know the exact right thing to make everything better. The problem is, I think I’m the only one who knows the exact right thing, and so I’m the only one who could give the pep talk to myself.
Sometimes, I think, the exact right thing is knowing that I’m enough. And so, this is my pep talk.
I read an article the other day in the New York Times called ”The Psych Approach,” and it was about how childhood traumas can cause lifelong damage, and the more traumas, the more likely a person was to die of cancer, attempt suicide, have learning problems at school, etc. It was more than a little bit depressing, and I was talking to Gregg about the story. I asked him, “But I took the test they used in the study to determine childhood traumas, and I scored in the highest risk group. And yet. I’m fine.”
“I know,” he said.
“You don’t understand!” I said. I listed all of the things I’d been through on the test, and how people with a score as high as mine should be dead, or in prison, or at the very least not happily married, healthy, living in a warm house with plenty of food on the table, not someone who has the chance to make her wildest dreams come true. Gregg said, “Well, I’ve never met anyone with as much determination as you.” (He’s a good guy.)
I’m not including that in here to humble brag, I wanted to write it in so you would know I disagree. There is absolutely nothing special about me. I didn’t have a fun childhood. I’m not exceedingly smart or pretty or talented or athletic. I didn’t come born with any special gifts. I should be suffering, biting my nails down to the nubs and drinking the day away.
The only reason I’m not is because of one thing that usually keeps the pang away. This is it. This is the only, only chance I get. I don’t want to fritter my time away on anything I don’t love. I don’t want to make the pang go away with drugs or alcohol or violence or even mindless TV or overeating or procrastinating. I want to spend every, every second appreciating what I’ve been given by making the most of it. That’s the only difference. That’s it. No special gifts. Just this.
So maybe the pang won’t go away today, or maybe it will always lurk in the background, but it’s not worth not trying my best. Maybe I’ll fail. OK, I’ll probably fail. I’ll fail a lot. I might not be very good. My wildest dreams might not come true, but that’s not even the point. The point of being here is to try, whether the pang lurks in the background or haunts me every day, whether I fail and feel miserable some of the time or not. The point is to not let it stop me, because whether it stays or goes, I only have this. And what if I succeed, even a little? Or what if the failure leads me to something better than I could ever have imagined? It’s happened before. It might happen again.
And so, no, this isn’t the perfect pep talk. I’d like it be less rambly. I’d like it to use better vocabulary and grammar. I’m not the best writer, and the thoughts in my head aren’t translating quite how I want them. I wish I was better at this. I’m not good enough to do this, but I’m doing it anyway, because this is it.
So maybe I do deserve it, because I know what a gift it is to be here every single day, to be alive and warm and happy and unharmed and pursuing my wildest dreams. Not many people get all of it, so I’m going to try, and fail, and pick myself up, and try again.
I like you a whole awful lot and can’t wait to meet you.
This. I need this pep talk often, as I clearly (in my head anyway) do not measure up. The pangs visit me every few weeks, and result in a day of weepy “everybody hates me, I suck at everything, yada yada” (you get the idea).
So thanks for the pep talk. I hope this makes your pangs stop, because yes, you deserve good things.
Knowing that today and everything that comes with it is a gift…is a gift. Not everyone has it.
Three things:
1. You can always tell the foreigners at Disney World/Land because of their odd shoes. The Germans (but the French aren’t innocents either) are by far the worst.
2. I also am a ridiculous nail biter.
3. This: “I want to spend every, every second appreciating what I’ve been given by making the most of it.” is so incredibly genuine and profound. You’re amazing.
Remember, depression lies. And this sounds a lot like my depression. I’m not saying you have depression, I’m just saying, it sounds like what my brain used to tell me all the time when I wasn’t well. And you are enough. I LOVE your writing and can’t wait to download my very own copy of Office Crush to my kindle.
I’m not sure why you don’t think you’re special. You are tremendously funny and an amazing writer.
Knowing and giving yourself a pep talk is a great step forward x
When you work at something, you deserve what you get from it. It’s amazing that publishing houses want your work–but it’s right because you’re *hilarious* and a good writer. The pang might be the thing that makes successful people BE successful. I bet Steve Jobs was never like, “Well, this is fine; it’s good enough.” Same thing for Judy Blume or any other wildly successful writer with longevity. They revised and worked like mofos.
I’m happy that you’re TRYING and DOING!
Maybe the pang is just from eating all that mayo the other day.
Great post!
Everything I want to say is terribly and obnoxiously churchy. And yet… my heart is just FULL of it as I read this. Maybe sometime. Maybe over that cake I keep talking about.
Being afraid of failure is one of the reason why most people don’t try. Including myself. But you won’t ever know if you don’t put yourself out there. And failure is another opportunity to learn. I know you’ve put in the hard work and effort and you owe it to yourself to try and try again. You can insert a bunch of cliches here but I feel like they’re all true. If you ever need an Internet pep talk, let me know. Sometimes I get in these funks as well and it takes days to shake them (which seems like a little bit too long but my brain doesn’t listen to me)
I just found your blog a few weeks ago and I think you are amazingly talented, I wouldn´t come back if I didn´t. Everyone who reads you blog thinks so, I´m sure. Pangs get us all sometimes, whether we have been through trauma or not, depression hits us as well, regardless of the amount of crap we have experienced. I actually think those who had it rough are often more well equipped to deal with it, and, just like you are doing right now, are able to pep talk and nurse themselves through it. Asking others for support is also a good thing, which I can see you are doing.
This guy knows what it´s like to write a book:
http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/34033661433/writing-a-novel-is-like-driving-from-new-york-to
Just hang in there!
I love this post, Shalini, because it is something every one of us struggles with every day…our inner mind’s voice. She can be such a bitch at times! Telling us we’re not good enough. I think the more we recognize this voice and become aware of it, the easier it is to be able to say something like “thanks for the input, but I know I am worthy/good enough, and you are not the real me.” Anyway, thank you for writing about this because there is comfort in knowing that we all experience this voice, most of us on a regular basis. And there is comfort or safety in numbers in knowing that it is something we all must deal with.
Been catching up with your recent posts and was moved to leave a comment for the first time. If you think your real friends are on Twitter than either you don’t know what real friends are, don’t have any or don’t appreciate them. Twitter and people that you have never met in the blogosphere or Twitter-land can be awesome and fun people to connect with. But in my experience they will never replace a real-in-person friendship. I hope you have some of those…besides your husband who you talk incessantly about and I hope you appreciate them. You rarely ever talk about having any friends on here except people on the internet. That isn’t healthy.