I get out of bed, drink some water, and decide to lie down for a bit longer.
See if I can fall asleep again.
I do. For a while.
6 AM. That’s better. That’s acceptable.
I turn to my side to grab my phone.
Not to check notifications, but to read my book.
As I travel a lot, sadly, I read my books from a screen.
Maybe one day, I’ll have a library.
Like the ones you see in movies: mahogany wood, chesterfield chairs.
A desk with that little gold lamp with the glass, green shade.
And if the library is big enough, a ladder, so I can climb it and reach the books stored way up high
If only… Sigh..
For now, my phone will have to do. I continue to read Meditations, the teachings of Marcus Aurelius. I always highlight notes in books, parts I want to return to at some point. But this book carries such wisdom, it might end up more highlighted than not.
I read for about an hour. I feel inspired and guided. The road ahead is paved, and the work is clear.
After reading for a while, my mind starts to drift…
I think about a particular man in my life, and a sense of sadness creeps in.
This man seemed to embody the values I’m reading about now. A virtuous man with a strong mind. And I can’t help but shake the feeling that this idea, one I hardly even dare say out loud, might be true:
“I wasn’t good enough.”
As soon as you say those words out loud, people trip over themselves to remove this preposterous belief from your mind:
“You are worthy!”
“Everyone is worthy!”
“Worthy here, worthy there…”
“If he doesn’t see your worth, he’s not worthy of you!”
(Taking notes: All people are worthy, except for the ones not catering to our ego!)
What if we stopped saying this? What if worth isn’t handed out like brand-new Pontiac G6’s on Oprah’s Favorite Things show?
Oprah pointing:
“You get worth! And you get worth! And you get worth!”
More? Wait for it….
Oprah, excitedly shouting with her hands in the air:
“EVERYONE GETS WOOORRRRTTTTHHHHH!!!”
No. Don’t get upset just yet. I’m not saying some humans are worthy and others are not, or that we shouldn’t all be treated with care and respect. But what if, by convincing ourselves that we’re all “oh so worthy,” we’re actually doing ourselves a disservice, and avoiding real reflection?
Failing to acknowledge our shortcomings, and missing opportunities for growth.
Saying things like:
“They didn’t see your value!”, “They didn’t appreciate you!”, or “You deserve better!” might be a great strategy to keep your ego intact, but it might also be the single thing preventing you from actual growth.
And the truth is, considering the possibility that you weren’t “good enough”…
That hurts….
I put my phone away.
As able as I am to face the possibility of this truth, I’m definitely not going to wallow in it. Continuing to read now would only magnify the God-like image I’ve assigned to this man I barely knew. No. That image does not need fuel.
It’s interesting, right? The less we know about someone, the more we’re able to fill the gaps with fantasies. We see in people what we want to see, be it good or bad. When we’ve created a bias toward someone, it’s hard for them to do anything that will change that.
Last night I dreamt of my mother.
She was lying in bed in the house I grew up in, watching television and waiting for a call. She had bought something from a company, I’m not completely clear on what, a couch I believe.
At a certain point the company called, and I could hear them talk on the phone. They were fobbing her off with nonsense, being untrue.
“There is something wrong with the product”, they said.
Making excuses as to why they couldn’t deliver. It became clear to me they’d been doing this for a while.
I took the phone to talk to them.
My mother is a passive person, afraid of conflict.
Avoiding it at all cost (except for with me). But me, passive?
Not so much. When I believe wrong has been done, I speak up, regardless of who it’s done to. (Except for when it’s done to me, of course. Then… it doesn’t count.)
I speak to the manager firmly. My tone reveals I’m not pleased, and that they need to make good on their promises. As we speak, he tries to dazzle me with pretty phrases.
He’s a conman, charming, but full of lies.
The conversation continues. More excuses, until he says he’ll deliberate with his colleagues. I assume he thinks he muted the line, but I can hear him speaking to someone. The truth revealed: it was all lies. They’d been dishonest with my mother the whole time, taking advantage of the fact that she’s someone who doesn’t fight back.
I’m angry.
I tell my mother, enraged, what they’re doing.
And that they can’t be trusted.
My mother, I think, prefers avoiding uncomfortable truths just as much as conflict. Probably because accepting uncomfortable truths often comes with conflict.
So? She continues to lay there. Curled up. Vulnerable.
Avoiding.
Uncertain what to do.
Hoping it will all just go away.
The situation.
The couch.
The money.
It all doesn’t matter, as long as it just miraculously disappears, so she doesn’t have to deal with it. It’s then when it hits me. The reason for this dream.
The thing I need to confront within myself.
Uncertainty.
Until then, the words had flown out of me effortlessly. But as soon as I wrote the word, uncertainty, I slowed down…
“Uncertain what to do…”
I pause. Instantly, my mind goes back to a moment in time.
A situation with my God-like, modern day Marcus Aurelius, the man I just told you about. It was a moment of uncertainty that had ended it.
Let me tell you a story..
Once Upon a Time (Not That Long Ago)
There was a man I’d been talking to.
Completely my type: smart, handsome, tall.. and avoidant.
Of course. Maybe. Who knows.. But yeah, I tend to go for those.
What can I say, (shrugging shoulders),
I like a challenge….
All was going well, but I was uncertain about something, and like my mother in the dream, I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to avoid it. But avoiding it wasn’t an option. I either had to make up my mind, and act accordingly. Or..
I had to bring it up.
On the inside, I felt like my mother. Wanting to curl up in fetal position and wait for it all to magically disappear. It seems to have worked for her so far…
But (unfortunately), my rule for life is:
Conquer your fears.
It’s the only path to freedom and to your actual, authentic self.
My uncertainty about something he said stemmed from fear. Fear not caused by him, but by past situations. Old wounds. I decided to bring it up, but even before I did, I felt afraid. And in an instant, everything changed..
His eyes, though they were still the same eyes looking at me, they no longer looked the same. Yes.
It was done….
Uncertainty
It’s the feeling I hate most in the world. Not the uncertainty of life.
Not the “who knows what will happen tomorrow” uncertainty. No.
The uncertainty of:
Not knowing what to do.
When your next step is unclear, while the consequences might be huge.
When the mental framework you’ve built for yourself on how to handle life fails you. When you have to figure it out in the moment, with tools that simply don’t suffice.
No guide.
No rulebook.
No Marcus Aurelius to consult.
Yes, that kind of uncertainty, I hate.
I hate what it does to me.
Brave Lilé?
The confident one.
The bold one.
The risk-taker.
Nope.
She’s gone.
Missing in action.
Nowhere to be found.
It’s just me, curled up in bed, anxiously overthinking, trying to figure it out. I guess that’s the point where self-trust comes in. When you listen to your gut, and step up, not knowing what’s going to happen. You just act.
You do what you think is…
Right.
And you either do. (What’s right that is.)
Or you make a mistake, and you learn from it.
Me? I made a mistake. And I learned from it.
Sadly, sometimes, that’s too little, too late…
So I put my phone down and stopped reading.
This time, I made a mistake. And the truth?
I wasn’t “good enough”. Not in this moment.
And no. This doesn’t say anything about my worth as a human. I’m still a worthy, valuable person. I know that. But in this situation? I fell short. I didn’t do the right thing. I didn’t handle it in the way I should have. And the only thing I can do now is better myself. It’s easy to cast blame. To say he should have been more understanding. To fall back on cheap lines, like:
“Woman, his loss. You are a dime!”
No. Sometimes, we have to be willing to face the fact that we fall short.
That doesn’t mean we’re not a dime.
We still are. But even dimes are flawed.
(Though I aspire to become FL.)
It’s true what they say.
It’s either a blessing or a lesson.
And maybe, sometimes, it’s both.
Maybe this lesson was the blessing I needed.
But regret? No, I don’t have time for that.
I have better things to do.
Like drinking coffee.
And write, while contemplating life.
Or planning a trip to the South of Italy.
And fantasizing about vineyards.
Mystical mountains, and ancient beauty.
I look up from my laptop. Green in front of me. My coffee is sitting on the table next to me, I take a sip. I’m back in the world. ‘Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)’ by Peter Sarstedt plays softly from the speakers. I listen to the lyrics.
They’re tender.
“I know where you go to, my lovely,
When you’re alone in your bed.
I know the thoughts that surround you,
’Cause I can look inside your head…”
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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Photo credit: nguyen quan On Unsplash
