self-doubt – Postcards Without Stamps

I’ve been thinking many times this year about quitting blogging or quitting photography or quitting my research or one of the three languages that we speak at home – this one was initiated by someone’s suggestion rather than personal doubt – but anyhow…

This year has been a struggle – a continuous ping-pong of rejecting and accepting of who I am and what I do. When I tried to quit any of the things above, I felt terribly unsettled, I felt that I was betraying someone and this someone was me. Fortunately, what I was rejecting was coming back – so now I am wiser and I’ve accepted that if what we reject somehow comes back and it brings joy, it’s a signal that this is who we are and that perhaps – Could this be true? – that we have found ourselves. So this is who I am and this is what I do and there is no further story to it. Just acceptance of it all.

I think it’s the joy that makes it ours – it’s this quiet emotion that puts a spring in our steps, the emotion that should not go unnoticed.

If you feel joyful about something, it’s yours. If you feel joyful about returning to something, it’s yours. If you feel joyful about commencing something, it’s yours.

Never underestimate the power of joy for joy is what you are meant to be.

As much as I see situations when I would agree with the title of this post, I wouldn’t say that this is what I experience when I am in the process of creating something. I am often troubled and pressured by a guard in my head telling me that I am too slow, too quick, or that I really should be doing something else, and of course that there is a better, simpler, easier or a more sophisticated way of doing whatever I am doing. This internal judge can speak quite loudly, boldly discrediting or shaming whatever project I am working on. The voice is especially powerful at the end of the year when I am trying to catch up on some often self- or socially-imposed agreements.

This voice is a fairly competent time thief. Because really whatever I am doing I love doing and whatever project I dive into answers a craving of my heart and soul in some way, or answers some needs that the season and family life creates.

Life is too short to take yourself too seriously (yes Rachel, you’ve told me that). Too short to focus only on one piece of a jigsaw puzzle. One piece never builds a view. It never gives you a sense of completeness. Life is made of many pieces, many wonderful pieces that complete and complement one another.

I wish we were more forgiving towards ourselves. Less judgmental. More understanding. We are all trying as much as we can in the areas we find ourselves in. There is no need for additional pressures (external or internal) on top of those that are already present.

It doesn’t matter if we are quick or slow. If we do things in this manner or another way. If we make occasional mistakes. If we don’t do things as well as someone else. The important thing is that we have the willingness to do things, that we have the willingness to renew, change or just carry on. The willingness is often enough to move us forward and it is this willingness that I am today grateful for. The need to persevere.