doubt

You don't fit in. Well, let’s face it, you don't – and it bothers you. No matter how hard you try to convince yourself that you don’t care, no matter how many times you tell yourself that you don’t need to conform - that you’re unique, that you’re one of a kind, that you’re an individual - it still hurts you to know that others look at you differently.

You try to push those feelings aside, but they creep up on you. They bubble up from the depths of your unconscious, oozing out through cracks in the thin skin of your seeming. Infected, you scratch and scratch, but the rash of insecurity spreads. It’s in your walk, your talk, the way you part your hair. You are unsure of yourself – and it shows.

You wonder if anybody else can tell, and I wonder that you even have to ask. Of course they can – they feel it, too. That self-doubt, that dubiety. High-powered businesswoman that she is, even your neighbour feels it. It lives in those feelings of apprehension she has when she wears a new suit for the first time – all day long she thinks about her ass, and whether or not it looks big in black. Your doctor queries his decision to wear his new shoes - he’s distracted all day as he wonders if they make him walk funny. The cable guy is embarrassed by the stain on his shirt, the priest feels that his robes might be a little too short, and the dentist doesn’t like her complexion under fluorescent lighting.

No, you don’t fit in - it’s true. But none of us do, really. And fancy yourself to be unique all you like, but you’re really just like every other person on earth: chockfull of self-doubt, brimming with insecurity, overflowing with uncertainty.