Doubt weighs heavier on my shoulders than my aspirations ever could.
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Hi. I am intrigued to tell you my name. Introduce myself since this is my first ever article, get you to know me but I won’t because my name or who I am is not important here. What is important is what I am about to do, to say and I hope it lands on the person it was meant for.
A few days ago I was on a phone call with my uncle. I realise that I speak to him most during the first few months of the year because what he has to say literally has the power to drive my entire year into a purposeful direction. And it was time again to seek purpose. To hear from the person who saw through me the most if I was in the right direction and I realise there is no way to tell but what I had thought I wanted didn’t work out and just like that, I was at odds again, I was lost and only he gave me the freshest, non-oppressive guidance so off course he was my first phone call. There are only a handful of people in this world who are able to see or validate your purpose. People who have seen it in you way before you see it in yourself. People who wait for you to get there on your own and say “Yes! Finally, I saw it. I was just waiting for you to see it too” He is that person for me. And as usual what he had to say filled me with gravitas about what and who I can become if I didn’t have doubt.
I have always aspired to be somebody. To be known, to be famous. To contribute not only my talent to the world but also to be known as one of the greatest to ever do it, whatever it was. To start something new, to walk a path never walked before and to be a matriarch at something, the first, the most looked up to, to shake up the entire world into a whole new direction. To crash whatever norms were put in place, to turn some heads and step on some toes, all in the benefit of human kind Ofcourse, and my ego a little bit.
And as big my aspirations, I only dream because I am crippled with doubt. I have spent years at war with myself because my doubt keeps me in a tiny little cage of comfort.And there’s nothing wrong with comfort unless your hopes and dreams haunt you.I spend hours, days, years in my head dreaming of my ability, dreaming of my intelligence, what I could do, who I could be but when it comes to acting on it I am a coward because what if… What if it won’t be as I imagined it would be, what if I will fail, what if nobody will read what I have to write or care at what I have to say. What if I won’t change the world.Maybe I should wait. Wait until I am a little bit more educated or independent.I should wait for the day my anxiety is gone and I wake up with a clear head.I should wait for the day I awake with no doubt in my mind.
So I write in this moment with anxiety, doubt and a foggy brain. I write because I realise the day I am waiting for isn’t coming, that waiting is only going to deepen my doubt and strengthen my anxiety. I write holding on to the smallest courage I have earned from my uncles words “Don’t worry about changing the world or peoples minds, worry about the one person who’s life you will actually change.” I know now that the person my uncle was referring to was me.
I needed the courage to change my own life.I was so focused on finding ways to change what was happening outside of me, I forgot about myself. I am the one in real need of saving and only I can save myself.
And so I write to prove to myself that I believe in me instead of just saying it all the time without action. I write to give to myself the love that my uncle has always given to me. I write to set myself free.
And if by any chance this finds you, I hope it means to you what it means to me. I hope you see it as a sign to release yourself from whatever it is that is holding you back. A sign to believe in you and your ability. A sign to change your life and pour into yourself love.And if you do not have such a person as my uncle in your life, I will be him for you.