I just got back my first assignment, and I can't say that I'm not disappointed. I wish I did better, but now there's going to be an undesirable mark on my results. Not that I'm a result-driven person, I'm in fact very far from it. I'm just deeply passionate about what I do, and it disappoints me when I can't do well in something I'm deeply passionate about.
As I shed a few personal tears with my tutor while expressing to her the doubts I feel from being here, she shared with me a common human curse called The Imposter Syndrome. The Book of Life aptly describes this as the state of people when "we are held back by the crippling thought that people like us could not not possibly triumph given what we know of ourselves: how reliably stupid, anxious, gauche, crude, vulgar and dull we really are".
It hit me, when my tutor described it. Because I feel that way almost all the time. I feel inadequate, and I feel so undeserving. I feel like my achievements are just a product of God's divinity, and very very little is due to my own self. I feel this especially in areas of religion and education – two aspects that have grown to take a significantly huge portion of my entire life.
But well, I can't allow this thought to cripple me, because I want to be capable of things greater than myself. And how can I, if I won't allow myself to pick myself up after inevitable failure?
Interestingly, I've gone through this. I know I have. And I'm gonna go through it again, and again, and again... I just know it.
InsyaAllah, though, with every time I succumb to the demons of my own Imposter Syndrome, I bounce back up better, and stronger, against it.
