The Diary of a Crazy Woman

This week I had to write a “Personal Constitution” that I will live by.  First, I had to figure out what my values are and what I want to be remembered for, then decide how I’m going to get there.  It made me think about my life now and where I’m at, and where I want to be.  I’ve felt stagnant for a while, and like I’m just sliding through life without really finding the joy that’s in it.  I think it’s because I’ve never really felt I could reach the level of success that I would like.  Sure, I’m in school and on my way to bigger and better things, but when I think about graduating and moving into a new career it frightens me.  Actually, it scares the HELL out of me.  Why?  Maybe because I’m afraid to fail, maybe because I don’t have the confidence or belief in myself that I can be anything more than mediocre.  Maybe that’s why I have isolated myself to some degree and don’t engage in much of any kind of a relationship with anyone.  I feel mediocre.  I’ve never felt like I could be anything more than that.

It’s sad to say, but it all stems back to a childhood memory.  I remember being in the back seat of our Chevy Malibu and saying something to my mom about something I had done being better than someone else’s.  I was really proud of myself, but my mom was quick to say that it was wrong to be vain, and I’m not any better than anyone else.  I wasn’t trying to be better than someone else, I was just proud of something I had done.  That moment has stuck with me for such a long time, and I guess I took that to mean it was wrong to feel good about anything I’ve done or accomplished.  It was wrong to feel good about myself because then I would be vain and prideful.  I know my mom didn’t intend for me to take it the way I did, but I was a very sensitive child and took things very personally and quite literally.

So for all these years I haven’t held myself to a higher standard because I haven’t ever felt it would be something I could obtain, and if I did it would be wrong.  It’s so hard for me to take a compliment because if I do, I feel like I’m admitting I did something well, or that I look good that would be vain and me thinking I’m better than someone else.  I’ve never felt that anyone could ever really love me because I wasn’t worth it, I wasn’t ever going to be good enough, and if I ever felt I was that was wrong.  Whenever I’ve felt that maybe someone loved me I question it, and in the end convince myself that they don’t.  I’ve settled for things most of my life because I didn’t feel I deserved better.

Really, it’s been a AH HA! moment…I have a sense of self worth just because I’m alive and am a creation of God.  I have this sense of divine worth, and when I think of myself as that spiritual being I know I’m worth something, that I am loved by God even if people don’t.  (Without that knowledge I would probably think I was worthless, rather than mediocre.)  It’s just taking that energy, that confidence and applying it to mortal beings, to my mortal life, to my mortal success, to my mortal existence.  I want to feel more than mediocre.  I want to be more than mediocre.  I want my life to be more than mediocre!  I want my expectations of myself to be something other than mediocre!!  I want to feel like people think I’m more than mediocre.

To achieve success we have to believe we can be successful.  We have to believe we are worth the success, that we are more than mediocre.  Really, that’s all that holds us back – the things we tell ourselves, and the things we believe about ourselves.  We are the only ones holding ourselves back.  We might run into a few road blocks, but if we believe in ourselves, we can over come them and find the success we are looking for.  We create our own destinies, we write our own life stories, and we live what we believe we are.