The Stories I Tell About Myself

“It’s like everyone tells a story about themselves inside their own head. Always. All the time. That story makes you what you are. We build ourselves out of that story.” — Patrick Rothfuss in The Name of the Wind

I’ve been struggling lately with the story I tell myself about myself.

I’ve had a narrative going in my head for a long time that I’m not very smart. I’m pretty sure this started as a self-deprecating joke that helped me cope with the fact that I’ve been lucky enough to be surrounded by some absolutely brilliant people my entire life. Even when the social groups changed, that still held true. Of course it’s true that there’s always someone better, no matter how good you are. But it’s been very intimate for me. It’s not like “oh no I’ll never be as good as Gary Kasparov.” It’s “oh hey, this assignment that took me three days and still doesn’t work right was done by my buddy in one night when they took the course.” The comparisons become very direct.

To be clear, I did these comparisons by myself! And the few times they were done for me, I tried to (hopefully gently) remind people that just because something is way X for them doesn’t mean it was way X for me. I tried to remember that myself. The very smart people in my life have also on the whole been quite kind, and never ground my nose in it. I did a very good job of making my face meet rock all by myself, thank you very much.

Still, the comparisons eroded my self-confidence. I doubt wrangling with a cockatrice of anxiety and depression helped much, either. Nor my recent job search. These are all catalysts for me to get where I am right now faster, but it feels like I was always going to get here.

Frankly put, I feel like I’m a dunce. The story has changed from “in comparison to these other people, I am not as good at them in their field” to “I’m not good at any field.”

Job searching has pounded this home for me, as has becoming more involved in the tech field/discourse again. Now, I know that job listings are often wish lists, not realistic, etc. I don’t need that particular bit reinforced to me, though I appreciate very much th eintention behind it. When I look at a job listing, I see a huge list of things that I know some of. I’ve worked with tool X before, I’ve done basic admin on tool Y, I know snatches of programming language Z. Essentially I often have the skills to maintain things and read them, but not to build them from scratch. But that’s it, and that’s not enough. Meanwhile, I see people teach themselves programming languages or the newest tool in less than a month. I see people starting new projects and getting to proof of concept in a few days. I see others tearing out of the starting blocks and chewing up the track while I huff and puff and stumble along getting lapped.

I don’t know what to do about it.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still putting one foot in front of the other. I’m (slowly) learning Python, to plug a big gap in my current skillset. I was working on studying for an A+ certification, though now I’m not sure if that’s a more effective use of my time than going directly to Network+ or Security+. I’ve kept up writing, I even get practice in drawing once in a while. I make silly tech jokes online with people and feel like I understand what they’re saying when they talk about their own projects. I even figured out how to get an SSL certificate installed on this site pretty fast (though, admittedly, it was finding the right part of my hosing cPanel and pressing a button).

I’m probably improving, but, with the possible exception of writing, it feels way slower than is normal? And I don’t know what to do about it. I think if I started telling myself that ‘I got this!’ and changing the story I tell myself about myself so I’m the kind of person that can start effectively using a new programming language in a week, or get a basic certificate in a month, or could just drink in infosec stuff until I figured out the details of what the flying fuck I should be doing, maybe that would be the case.

But while I’m still on the track, getting lapped? When after 4 years in the field I’m coming up qualified for only entry level positions? It’s hard to change that story. Really hard. And even if I did. I’m not sure I could live up to this new legend of myself. I don’t want to accept where I am, but all the other islands (hi mixed metaphors) are way off, and I don’t have a boat so much as a half-rotted board.

So I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to change the story I tell myself for the long term. But if I don’t, I’m worried about how my external story will go, too.

There’s no neat ending to this. Just that I’m struggling, and I wish I knew what to do about it. Sorry for the downer post, all. <3

P.S. (I wonder, too, if some of this might have to do with my personal slant towards being a generalist and thus splitting my attention, but the particular post has gone on long enough, so I don’t want to add another full discussion here. Just this note.)