Like most things I’m insecure about, it turns out that there’s
a numb place. At some point, being insecure about everything sort of wears off.
I like to think of it more like polishing a piece of wood. The first pass with
sandpaper is very rough, lots of grit, and it removes a lot of the bits and
pieces we create of ourselves, the things we let go when we’re under ridiculous
stress. The next time that stressor comes through, we’ve either built those
pieces up again or abandoned them completely, but either way, when the
sandpaper comes for us again, there’s a lot less of us that’s sticking out.
If I follow this analogy to the end then we’d have to sort
of accept that life just kind of grinds us down, which isn’t exactly true, but
at the same time, doing the same task that makes us insecure, eventually the
sand paper goes to a finer grit. It’s less abrasive. Sure, it still grinds big
chunks away, but it’s still less than before. Do that enough, and it gets less
still.
So it’s not that my insecurities are less insecure, it’s
that the part of me that worried so hard has been ground away a great deal. I
understand the shape of me more, and that causes the loss of my extraneous bits
to be, somehow, less painful. In short, for today, many of my writing based
insecurities are living in the place that I label “true, but inefficient.”
It’s a nice box to have. I put my fear of public speaking
there. I keep my anxiety about work there. It’s just inefficient to spend that
much time worrying about some things. I’m trying to move my social media
presence into that box, but I don’t think I’m going to manage that, we’ll see.
How about you, do you have a place like that? Or are you a
completely awesome person without insecurities?
As always, be sure to check out the Ninja Captain Himself, Alex and his co-hosts today are Tyrean Martinson, Ellen @ The Cynical Sailor,Megan Morgan, Jennifer Lane, and Rachna Chhabria!
