imposter syndrome is typically talked about in a professional context. it is what prevents you from sharing a thought, contributing an idea, taking a stand because a voice from within questions or downright denies your qualification in doing so. it presumes that you somehow, through some sort of acrobatic hijinks, ended up on a higher rung of the ladder than you’re supposed to be. it asks “what the hell are you doing here? who are you to think you belong here?”

that kind of imposter syndrome is a different flavor than the kind that i suffer from. it’s not that i actually go through life feeling like i “belong in” or “deserve” the professional access i’ve gotten. i’ve generally accepted the fact that i hacked my way in, jumped through all the loopholes, slithered between all the cracks, pretty much ever inch of the way. i wear the chip on my shoulder like a badge of honor. i credit all the high school rap battles – the training ground for churning arrogance and deflecting insults has given me thick skin and an even thicker head.

the imposter syndrome i’ve come to know goes beyond just the workplace environment, it is about my very existence in society. i don’t mean for this to sound like a kid cudi hook – it’s distinct from loneliness or alienation (not that those are unfamiliar concepts either). it revolves around the totally vague, completely incalculable, entirely subjective question of whether i’m a good person. self-survey says…”we’ll see.”

you know that kind of scene in a movie where a bad guy enters the good guy’s home posing as a friend, and everyone in that home blindly trusts this person except for the dog who won’t stop snarling or the kid who has the most cutting interrogation questions? i feel like that all the time. in a debacle not unlike the end of mrs. doubtfire, someone’s going to expose me and how all my acts of kindness have been a sham. adriel is actually horrible.

i don’t know if this comes from being raised in church and being told that i’m a sinner no matter what i do, or from growing up in the bay where it’s not uncommon for someone you’ve never met to stop you on the street and say, “i can feel your energy.” since then, i haven’t been able to shake off the constant suspicion that i’m walking around with a giant booger sticking out of my nostril, except instead of a booger it’s all of my darkest secrets and flaws, and instead of my nostril it’s my soul.

this imposter syndrome shows itself when someone calls me out for something i’ve done wrong, but it also flares up when the opposite happens, when someone praises me for the good i’ve done. the immediate response in my head is, “how do you know i’m actually a good person for doing that? how do you know i didn’t do that because i just selfishly want everyone to think i’m a good person when in reality i’m the worst?”

imposter syndrome at work can manifest itself by a counteracting feat of boldness that might have otherwise been out of character. i’ve gotten so tangled up in my struggle to be/do/prove goodness that i honestly don’t know if my good deeds are actually “in character.” the best and wisest people i know have looked me in the eye and told me i’m a good person, yet the voice inside still manages to mutter, “you’re right about most things, but…….”

but maybe it’s okay to stop trying to suppress those suspicions, and to befriend them. maybe it’s not about going about the world with confidence that i carry some kind of innate, specially-assigned goodness – that all the adverseness to coming off as anything but a good person has actually injected some goodness where it otherwise may not have been. maybe it’s the constant and untiring tending of this garden that actually cultivates the “good.” and maybe i’m good with that.

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