I have this peculiar habit when I’m feeling down. It’s going to be hard to describe specifically. But it’s something along the lines of: no one else must ever feel this way. No one else must be worried, weak and just mired down in it.
No no. That’s not quite it.
Scared, alone, not effective, useless, quagmired.
I guess I wonder if George Bush, Peter B. Lewis, Bill Clinton and in the past: Martin Luther King, Picasso ever had these kind of feelings. Did they ever feel scared?
Maybe the feeling is, “What if I’m not good enough.” “What if I can’t hack it.” “What if I’m not strong enough.” Maybe that’s it.
Do or did those people feel that way?
The funny thing is, if I ask myself those questions, the answer is always a resounding YES. Don’t be ridiculous. You can and have handled so much. You are the handler. If anything, that’s your defining characteristic.
Maybe that’s why it scares me so much. What if someday I can’t. That’s the underlying nagging question. What if I can’t. But it’s funny, as soon as I bring it to the forefront like right now, I snap out of it. I’m like, “Oh come on Sage. Don’t be a pussy. Nothing is bad. Get some perspective, man.” But the question doesn’t go away. That question is like a dream floating underneath consciousness, lingering. It’s more dangerous because it doesn’t let me hold it and deal with it. It disappears every time I reach out to kill it. It’s slippery, like an eel. That’s why I have such a hard time defining it. It doesn’t want me to define it. It’s more powerful laying hidden.
That’s it. That’s as close as I can come to telling you what I feel.
I bet that’s why most of those people mentioned above had such a strong faith in God. “There are no atheists in foxholes.” Their lives are foxholes. And they willingly jump into them day after day. I bet they get a lot of strength from their belief in God. That’s a tricky one for me being I don’t believe in God and all.
Holly, my divinity doctoral student friend, is coming later this month. I’ll have to ask her about this quandary.
This is the journey of owning your own business. It forces you to deal with your most deep seated fears and insecurities. Not dealing with them is stagnation or even death.
For all you readers out there. Take heart. If I had to guess, even Dr. King felt insecure at times.