Feelings of Inadequacy

Some days I feel fine. I don’t think about my self-worth much and just go about my business. But some days I feel like I am not good enough. This happens quite a lot, actually.

My house never seems clean enough. The colors on the wall aren’t main-stream enough. I am too fat. I don’t read enough. I don’t cook as well as I want to. I don’t know how to sew or knit. I look like I’m a teenager and no matter how hard I try, I can’t make myself look older. I am not nice enough. My clothes aren’t what I want them to be, but I’m waiting until the baby weight is gone. My hair just hangs. I’m no good at doing my daughter's hair. I watch too much television. My writing is mediocre. I wish I knew where my place was in this world. My skin is not very nice. I suck at applying make-up. I’m not always nice to my husband. I yell at my daughter and my dogs too much. I don’t spend enough time taking care of my animals’ needs. My windows haven’t been cleaned in a year. …

I could go on forever. In my head, I usually do. Sometimes I lie in bed at night and cannot fall asleep because I’m thinking about all the things that I am not good enough at. When I used to sing more, I always felt as though it was never as good as it could be.

Then one day, quite recently, a friend of mine said so many nice things about me, admiring certain things that I do. I was really confused. She was admiring the same things about me that I envied about her. I started to realize that I wasn’t the only one feeling inadequate, there are a lot of people (my guess is that it is mostly women) who think they are not good enough.

To all of you ladies: You are all wonderful! There is something beautiful about each and every one of you! I can promise you that there is at least one quality that you have that is admired by another person. You are worth just as much as every other human being on this planet. Just think about something you’re good at and be proud of yourself. Life is too short to think about the levels of perfection that we have not reached.

I for one am not proud of too many things. That does not mean that I will stop doing the other things. E.g. even though my writing isn’t as good as I would like it to be, it is good for now. I am practicing and I will get better. I guess it is good not to feel too confident and arrogant about ourselves, but we shouldn’t be too hard, either. I am hopefully always going to keep working on myself- there is a lot that still needs improvement…