I'm scared.
Posted: August 26th, 2012, 5:15 pm
In a week plus change, I'll be entering my fourth year of university. I've adjusted my availability for work accordingly, so that I'll be able to put my academic performance and attempts to launch my writing first and foremost. I've found a super-useful tool in my smartphone and all its assorted apps to help me manage everything in one place... I've organized a study group amongst a few of my friends in order to create an environment where I can be sure to actually get work done when I need to, and started contacting people about the myself and the members of my podcast doing a panel at a local convention our university organizes this upcoming February...
...and I feel absolutely, positively terrified that the possibility that it's all not going to be enough has entirely eluded me up until now. It feels like the degree of cataclysm that will follow my failure is only proportional to the amount of preparation I've done to PREVENT my failure.
I'm afraid that the risk I've decided to take in reducing my work hours in order to focus on school will be a massive mistake. That my attempts to put something in motion will fall through and put me right back where I started: in a job I can't stand with a giant chasm yawning out between me and the future I want.
I'm afraid that no matter how hard I work, I don't have what it takes. Whatever that is. Not enough talent, or networking know-how, or SOMETHING, some missing component that's essential for obtaining professional and academic success. When I was a kid, I got taken to be evaluated on my intelligence, it was determined that I was "above average, but not gifted". It feels like that's the story of my life. I'm good, but not good enough.
I've been keeping up with writing, with working out, with reading and continuously trying to absorb new info and use it to better myself and create new things, but sometimes I wonder if my attempts are at best well-meant attempts, and at worst self-masturbatory delusions of personal development.
I don't know what else I can do to quiet the voices that tell me it'll all be for naught, no matter what I try. The fear just feels... acidic, eating away at my determination and resolve. I don't. Know what. To do.
Somebody help me. Please.
...and I feel absolutely, positively terrified that the possibility that it's all not going to be enough has entirely eluded me up until now. It feels like the degree of cataclysm that will follow my failure is only proportional to the amount of preparation I've done to PREVENT my failure.
I'm afraid that the risk I've decided to take in reducing my work hours in order to focus on school will be a massive mistake. That my attempts to put something in motion will fall through and put me right back where I started: in a job I can't stand with a giant chasm yawning out between me and the future I want.
I'm afraid that no matter how hard I work, I don't have what it takes. Whatever that is. Not enough talent, or networking know-how, or SOMETHING, some missing component that's essential for obtaining professional and academic success. When I was a kid, I got taken to be evaluated on my intelligence, it was determined that I was "above average, but not gifted". It feels like that's the story of my life. I'm good, but not good enough.
I've been keeping up with writing, with working out, with reading and continuously trying to absorb new info and use it to better myself and create new things, but sometimes I wonder if my attempts are at best well-meant attempts, and at worst self-masturbatory delusions of personal development.
I don't know what else I can do to quiet the voices that tell me it'll all be for naught, no matter what I try. The fear just feels... acidic, eating away at my determination and resolve. I don't. Know what. To do.
Somebody help me. Please.