Amanda Dickson

I have been pondering the question – why do people who appear to have so much going for them say, when asked, that they do not feel confident in themselves?  Why, deep down, do we feel so insecure about ourselves, our relationships, our contributions?  We may feel confident in one aspect of our lives (”Well, I can make a killer chocolate cake.  That is one thing I’m good at.”), but overall – we feel unworthy.  Unworthy of our jobs, our mates, the blessings of our lives.  It’s the imposter syndrome.  We’re all walking around afraid that if anybody figures out we’re really incompetent, they’ll give us the boot.

Why?  Is it the way we’re born?  Is it human nature to feel incompetent, incapable, insecure?  Is it some failing on our parent’s part?  Should they have hugged us more, smiled at us more, told us we could do anything we put our minds to?  Is the feeling of incompetence not genuine – is it some false humility?  We don’t want to appear over-confident, so we feign insecurity.  Perhaps it is an overall fear of life and the repeated failure that is a necessary part of our time here on earth? 

Do we have an inalienable right to confidence?  If we are born with the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, are we not also born with the right to confidence?  Isn’t every human being worthy of feeling good about his or her contribution, calm in the making of that contribution, excited to keep learning how to improve that contribution? 

It may be a right, but one that many of us (85% by some research) choose not to exercise.  Why?  Why do we spend so much precious time and energy feeling insecure about what we offer in this life when we could, simply by choosing to make it so, feel confident in the same offering?

I am haunted by this question.  Any wisdom to share?

The theme that keeps recurring in my world lately is rejection – and fear of rejection.  We’re rejected by our employers, even those of us who thought we would never be the “ones to go.”  We’re rejected by our spouses, even some of us who thought that only happened to other people.  We’re rejected by our children, our neighbors, our friends, even our parents.  “Why don’t they want me?” is our siren’s song.  And if we aren’t actually rejected, we struggle with the constant ache in our chests that something may be amiss, that rejection is just around the corner, waiting to bite.

This pain we experience as a result of rejection seems uniquely obsessive.  It follows us through our days as we try to serve the people who are still in our lives, who still need our attention.  It leaves us wondering what’s wrong with us, what’s missing.  We obsess about our rejecter – how could he not want me?  How could they fire me?  How could she never call me back? When we wake, she is the first image in our minds, and while we’re stirring dinner on the stove, there she is again.

Rejection brings an uncommon set of challenges to even the strongest spirit.  A person who has everything and everyone will obsess only about the one person he cannot win over. The insecurity that can accompany rejection is profound, sometimes lasting for years.  We think on a deep level that we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not thin enough.  After all, if we were – he never would have rejected us.  Right?  Wrong.  Rejection isn’t about him, or her, or whoever is doing the rejecting.  It’s about us!

This is what I believe on this subject – rejection brings the precise level of pain we need to learn the lesson only it can teach, and it will come just as hard and unrelenting as we need it to. 

Bring it on.  Reject me. Let me fall to my knees with insecurity.  Good things are learned there anyway.  And what is my option?  Never asking?  Never loving?  Never learning?  Unacceptable.

Today I am grateful for rejection.  Sweet, sweet teacher of so many truths.

I’ve been thinking about writing a second novel for awhile . . . well . . . since I finished the first one actually.  But since the first one didn’t sell, I’ve pushed the idea back, down underneath more productive pursuits, put it in the closet.  I felt too indulgent to write a second work of fiction, to take the time to do it, when I couldn’t sell the first one.  Stick to what works, girl.

But it keeps bubbling up, like one of those wack-a-moles.  Today I read, “When a man’s willing and eager, God joins in.”   Ahh.  I am willing.  I am even eager.  Perhaps this feeling I’m having is the presence of God joining in.

This is the idea.  It’s based on a true story of adoption gone horribly wrong where a family adopts a boy from a foreign country, but when he doesn’t perform on cue like the family’s other children, doesn’t hug and snuggle and display affection like they do, the mother becomes more and more displeased with him.  She begins to deny him love, food, the basics of childhood that her other children take for granted.  Her struggle with him becomes so profound that she can’t stand the sight of him.  He reminds her that she isn’t perfect, something she simply cann’t allow for . . . so she divorces him. 

While her husband, who loves the boy deeply, sits by and does nothing – she divorces this otherwise perfect boy, goes through the complicated legal process of kicking him out of the family.  The novel is the story of what happens to her after dismissing a child – HER child – and what happens to him after being rejected by the only two women who ever mattered to him, his biological mother and his adopted mother.

What do you think?  Is there a novel there?