I have been doing a lot of self-reflection recently, partly due to applying to a few scholarships and fellowships. Man, those personal short essays will really make you pick your own mind apart.

I’ve realized (and it has been pointed out to me by some very close friends) that I am quite hard on myself.

I feel some self-resentment when I don’t perceive that I’m living up to my standards, especially when it comes to being everything and doing everything that the people I love ask from me. For most of my life, my subconscious remedy to this feeling has been to try harder, be busier, and therefore be better.

But I’m reaching a saturation point point in my life. The toll of maintaining my mind’s impossibly perfect standards for myself is manifesting in my body’s health, my mental state, and my ability to keep up with it all.

For a while I thought the solution was to commit less and cancel plans in order to reclaim some semblance of stillness and balance in my life, but that didn’t seem to work. No matter all the things I cancelled, other things somehow popped up in their place that I was eager to contribute to or get involved with, and I remain perpetually busy and a bit overwhelmed at all times.

Scheduling time for stillness and maintaining boundaries around those times is important, and that’s something I continue to work towards. But I’ve identified another aspect in which I’m hard on myself, which is keeping me from my goals.

I noticed a pattern in my passion work: when I get an idea, and I am learning about how to achieve it and planning how I will, and even developing the early stages of it, I have unlimited energy to work on it. But when it comes time to actualy launch the idea–make it have an impact, or let it be perceived by the masses–the project slows down immensely and takes the back burner while something else takes over the main brain spot.

I’ve realised this is a psychological block that stems from a fear of failure. It’s time for my idea and all this prep work to take flight, but it’s not quite perfect, so… what if I end up causing more harm than good?? What if I make a massive fool of myself and everyone who supported me this far?? What if I have no idea what I’m talking about and everyone sees that and never takes anything I do seriously ever again?? That’s what my insecurities say to me.

The thing is, my work will never be perfect. But if I never launch it, any chance I had about improving the world will stay unrealized.

So, I’m making a deliberate effort to publish imperfect and unfinished work. I’ve got to embrace the journey. I would love to accept criticism on my work, because there is no chance for me to know everything, so I need the perspectives of others to continuously improve it.

For this blog, I’m doing that by publishing the post stubs I’ve had in the works for a long time, as a committment to myself to continue developing them and let the world see my self-expression. I’m also working on adding a comments feature to this website so I can accept that critical feedback I know I’ll need.

There are three quotes I’ve been given recently that really drove the point home for me.

“Do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing, and you’ll never be criticized.” - Elbert Hubbard

“Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.” - Leonard Cohen, Anthem

“Stop booing yourself off stage before anybody had the chance to see you perform.” - @cameramanjake (through struthless’s video on Alive Internet Theory.)