Too good to use
Perfectionism — or even just the rose tinted, seeing the greener grass on social media — can set the ball rolling to have you questioning what you’re even doing… Are you even good enough to be here? To have your voice heard? To have a seat at the table?
I do this with food, a lot actually. I get something but want to save it for a special occasion… and then it goes bad or gets freezer burnt waiting for it’s day. I have many notebooks that have met similar fates, collecting dust waiting for the right content to fill them with.
I’m trying to keep this mindset at a distance, but I can see it creeping in. I see it here. 3 posts in and I’m already hesitant to keep going? Holding up this ideal of what the “right” content, the “right” types of posts I should be making. I’ve embraced in my own life ambiguity and percarity — but it’s hard to put those out in the public. To expose, essentially, your imperfections or just the boring, not perfect, not exciting aspects of your life — and to put those out like “Hi! Look at the mediocrity of my life! Isn’t it great?!”
So instead I hide, keep things quiet, refrain from posting. Too good to use is a sibling to imposter syndrome. It feeds on this insecurity that you don’t belong.
It’s all bullshit, really. So this is my public reminder to myself, that it’s ok to put a light on the boring, to let others see things that might not be as shiny or as perfect as others. And that honestly, trying to hold yourself up to the standards of others is asking too much of yourself.