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{8} Fake it till you make it
The worst best advice I ever got.
I’ve been doubting myself lately. Everything about me. Down to the tiniest, stupidest things at work, things I’ve done a million times, and suddenly I’m paralyzed with questions, staring down pathways and options that have literally fuck-all to do with the task at hand, but have somehow become The Most Important Thing to Figure Out Before I Proceed.
One of my co-workers saw me staring, probably wide-eyed, at my computer screen, hands poised over the keyboard, and asked if I was ok. “Eh.” I shrugged. My most common answer. “Fake it till ya make it,” she said, and returned to her post at the front desk.
It’s a phrase that has haunted me for years, a deceptively simple statement that seems so obvious, and yet every time I’ve tried to employ it, I end up here, doubting everything.
When I was in seventh grade, I switched from a horribly underfunded, painfully overcrowded public school to a super posh private school. The change was brutal. Crowded, echoing hallways turned into sprawling lawns and carefully landscaped gardens. I went from being the smartest kid in my class, often being told to just go to the library rather than stay in class, to being…well…average. Less than average, really. I was surrounded by kids with resources I had never dreamed of, who had been…
