Don’t Feel Bad-Nobody Knows What the Heck They’re Doing

Who me?
Who me?

How’s your week going? Good, I hope.

Found this article that made me both laugh and feel better so thought I’d share.

It seems that those folks we admire as over achievers often feel like they don’t know what the heck they’re doing. For example, “Messi, arguably the best soccer player of all time, almost always pukes before a match.”

Shrinks call it impostor syndrome: the more accomplished you get, the more talented people you hang around with, the less accomplished you feel.

So if you’re worried you don’t measure up, that could well be a sign that you do. Bertrand Russell, “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt”.

“I have written 11 books,” said the late Maya Angelou, who was renowned as a novelist, poet, and memoirist, “but each time, I think ‘Uh-oh. They’re going to find out now. I’ve run a game on everybody and they’re going to find me out.’”

Know the feeling? I was once a head honcho, was considered to be very competent, “classy,” and people said, “You must be a lawyer.” Classy? I think of myself as the grand daughter of a serf (which I am.) Lawyer? Is that even a compliment? When I dressed for fancy events, I felt like a kid getting ready for Halloween.

“What are you going to be this Halloween?”

“A classy lawyer CEO.”

“Ha! That’s a good one!”

Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou

Still I Rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

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