most of the day was spent walking upstairs and then downstairs and then back upstairs and downstairs again, still trying to determine what my priorities are.

but that’s not really what i had on my mind. what i had on my mind is not at all something i feel comfortable writing about.

i’ve been trying very hard to figure out the roots of this habit i sometimes fall into of disqualifying myself. whenever i encounter a new possibility that i want so badly to manifest into a reality, there’s this voice deep inside that i fight against, a voice forecasting failure, so why risk disappointment by making an effort?  this voice can show up anywhere, at any time, with any one. if that voice could articulate itself, it would say, “yeah, right. like you’re really going to get there,” as sarcastically as possible. it’s really mean-spirited. i don’t know what it has against me.

i’ve had the great fortune of little breaks from it from time to time, those moments when i get feedback from the outside world that could not be a more polar opposite than what the disqualifying voice tells me. This affirmation from the outside is often easily confused with inner strength.

Because each time i get that external kind of validation, i consider it to be a freak occurrence, a stroke of luck, a one-time phenomenon that only occurs once in a lifetime, once in this lifetime. i don’t know how, but i’ve been very fortunate in accumulating a large quantity of them, each time thinking that the most recent will be my last.

it’s not really a way to go about living in the world. living in the world to one’s total potential. i brush aside that voice as much as i can, and i sometimes delude myself into thinking that nobody else will notice… that nobody will detect these flickers of self-doubt.  but i think most people are sharper than that.

it just gets harder and harder to disguise that voice. but i haven’t quite figured out the way to deal with it.

but i’ve always had one thing in my favor, one thing going for me: perseverance. even if i run into the same wall, at least i continue running.