I’m a rather private person. I don’t often share openly about what I’m personally struggling with outside of a very small circle. I’m not one to broadcast what I’m worried about, stresses, my faith, needs, desires, or even what I’m passionate about (which is probably more odd than I realize). I often find myself writing at the end of each day in Day One, honestly just decompressing my busy days. It’s a place to take a step back from the day full of input from meetings, conversations, advice, and feedback loops and trying to get out of the jumbled mess into an understandable order I can actually comprehend. I struggle often to find words in the moment, it often leaves me initially shying away from face-to-face conversations because I’m afraid of looking like an idiot in front of someone who has better things to do with their time than to listen to me babble about something until their boredom sets in with a fierceness like that of the panic of a snowy day in Atlanta. I don’t know what that facet of me is, but I can definitely tell it’s limited me in a lot of areas. It not only makes me terrible at meeting new people, I struggle to find helpful words in creative meetings (a huge part of my job that I always feel like I’m ever-failing at), I even have a hard time just talking with people I feel safe with. It makes me terrible at marketing, promoting, or talking about myself.
I long to be articulate, to be worth listening to, or to simply bring value to a conversation that I’m a part of. I want to learn to be able to organize the jumble of thoughts in my head into something worth listening to or reading.
I think the hardest yet most comforting mental state is realizing that God made me this way. He designed me this way, knowing my desires and dreams, to be dependent on Him in the times where I not only feel inadequate, but actually am. He’s created a need for Himself, in me. He’s also created me to not be lazy, to work hard, to persevere, to overcome the shortcomings within myself. I have a lot of learned behaviors that I’m constantly trying to refine so I can be more effective and valuable to my relationships, friends, and job role.
It’s possible that I may never feel confident in my ability, but I think if I ever do, it will be for the worst. My dependence on me would rise at the cost of my dependence and reliance on God, even in the little things. I want to be better, not so I look better, but so God in my looks His best.
Being someone who’s rather private, it’s no secret that I’m insecure about a lot of who I am and what I do, so I suppose it’s about time I say what everyone else is probably already saying about me. It’s time to be a bit more vulnerable, because it’s a lie if I think I’m keeping any secrets (I’m a terrible liar, even to myself).
I have lots of learning and growing to do, but the journey is better than the destination. Here’s to life lived richly, not in the pursuit of riches.