Everybody is looking at you.

Are they though?

https://shapethings.tumblr.com/post/186346265796/amp

I've realised that in the past few months, I've been putting un-called-for pressure on my mind because of an irrational fear, popularly known as the "Imposter Syndrome" which makes one feel like a fraud as they are not good enough for something. It makes you feel that you don't deserve what you want or are not talented or skilled enough. It makes you feel that everybody is looking at you, keeping an eye on you just so they can find an opportunity to reveal your reality.

But, sadly, all of this is just a part of our mind games. A few days back, while I was preparing for an upcoming exam, I constantly felt like a wolf in a herd of sheep, as if I was trying to conceal my truth but I just wasn't. It was just the bitch inside me screaming "hey! you are just not enough and you'll never be!." This happens because it is a human tendency, a conditioned response that every time you get out of your comfort zone, you'll keep feeling the lack of skill and hard work because the world has convinced you that you are supposed to be consistently good at anything you do. They don't tell you that you'll never be good enough when you are doing something for the first time, and that is OKAY.

As an individual in her 20s, imposter syndrome has been kicking in ever since I turned 20. After a bit of research, I found out it is very common. In a world full of cut-outs and liars, it is very easy to feel like an imposter. This whole thing of feeling like a fraud is very complex, in fact, the concept is almost 50 years old. You feel the fear of being someone who is hiding, the fear that people would reject you, the urge to fit into your peers so that you are not left out, the shame of not being enough, and the overloaded guilt of all the above. There was this quote I had read 2 years back, and it has still stuck with me; It went something like this -

We are too worried what would people think about it in our 20s. And then in our 30s, we realise nobody was ever actually looking. People are too busy in their own lives to meddle with yours.

And this is something that always helps me, you know?

I mean isn't it true? You fall down on your face, and people might remember it for a month, hell a year, but at some point, everyone will move on from it. Of course, the ones who don't move on, are actually meddling in your life because they don't have one of their own. So relax. Take a chill pill. Maybe go to Ibiza.

I will not say nobody is looking at you. Yes, there are people looking at you, maybe even giving you a fricking death stare, but again does it really matter what they think? No. So any moment around the clock, this la fraude feeling came up, I would stop anything and everything I am doing at that moment, plug in my earphones and listen to 'zer0' by Krewella

and life just became easy. Trust me, you do you. Find out your ways. Find out what works for you and what doesn't. It'll be okay. It gets better.

-By Vanshika Patil