Calm. Down.
If you're not. Just.. calm. Down.
That's what I've had to do after two weeks of highly frenetic and unmanageable stress and mysteriously plummeting levels of self-confidence. After papers and advisor meetings and writing articles and passive aggressive editorial scoldings and equally mysterious and plentiful tears. After implicitly surrendering all of my abilities to be accepted or shredded. After caring so much.
Just, calm, down.
You are not what you do. What you do is part of you, but you are a multi-faceted creature of public and private varieties. You are your beliefs and your happiness and your quietness and your choice of actions and what you see when you close your eyes, all alone. You are not a piece of paper or a list of accomplishments.
It's taken me a while to learn this and I'm still in the process. This week I briefly lost my grounding and stumbled around looking for my identity after perceiving that I'd failed at something. Failure should never instigate a loss of identity, momentary or otherwise. That's basing too much on the outcome and too little on the process.
So, breathe.
I'm not done with this week, I still have several hours to work and another paper and at least one internship app, and then a review, but now I'm calm. I hope I will maintain a modicum of calm.
As an end note, my feature is on the front (!) of the Weekly--I'm pretty happy with it. Take a look if you're around here.
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