Inadequacy

It’s the feeling of giving everything you have–your time, your energy, your desire–and finding it still wasn’t enough. Despite your best efforts, you couldn’t perform, you couldn’t be who you wanted to be. And it’s not the failure itself that’s so painful, but the reason behind it: you. Your behavior is a reflection of who you are, and who you are isn’t good enough. We don’t condemn our actions, but the one acting.

Inadequacy is the emotion most difficult to justify. There’s a counterintuitive joy that can be experienced in sadness or anger. The sort of joy that rounds out a life well-lived by experiencing emotion’s entire spectrum. Inadequacy seems to fall somewhere outside of this. It’s the delegitimization of who we are, and with no ground to stand on, we have no right to feel anything, let alone joy.

Inadequacy is a flavor of struggle often too painful to name–as if it would only become real when recognized. But it’s wreaking havoc regardless–Denial, in fact, is only a fan to the flame. Have the courage to acknowledge your state of mind, and the wisdom to recognize that you aren’t defined by it. But most importantly, understand it’s source, and the ways in which you can either accept or change these circumstances.