INADEQUACY

The word of the day is inadequacy. 

Thinking too much has always been a gift and curse for me. My flight landed in St.Louis and I was thinking about other people’s problems. When I think of other people's problems I think about how I can relate to them and what I would do in their position. 

Have you ever seen people sort of free falling and it just seems that everything is always going wrong for them? I used to be dismissive of those people who would always express it (mainly men) to the public on social media. I had this way of thinking of “just man up and lock in. “

I know that was the wrong approach of thought but I guess I was only looking at situations from the perspective of how I would do things. Everybody doesn’t think alike. Stepping back and just looking at the problem I noticed pressure and how for every situation pressure seems to exist for people. 

The pressure may come from peers, social media, family, professions or just life in general. The pressure just builds and builds and then it causes the person to reach inadequacy. 

People fight the feeling of being inadequate in everything in their life. They feel behind everyone. It doesn’t matter the level it occurs on. It happens regardless. You sold 1000 items then you saw somebody sold 10,000 items and now you feel behind. You started a brand before someone and that someone who started after you may have surpassed your brand in terms of metrics. Now you feel bad and belittle your work.

You have the classic followers, likes, shares, subscribers pressure. You post something and it doesn’t get the likes or shares you wanted so then you put more pressure on yourself after seeing someone get more likes and shares than you. Everywhere you look people are being rewarded but you’re not and you feel inadequate. 

Something as simple as seeing someone get engaged and a single person's first thought would be “When is it going to be my turn?” Instead of celebrating love, their mind shifts to the pressure of focusing on what they do not have in their life at the moment. Funny thing is that 90% of the time the things we yearn for we’re truly not ready for and we will never admit that to ourselves because our desires take priority over improvement of self. How are you ready to receive love when you don’t love yourself? I’ve asked myself that question in the past and had to be honest with myself. Relationships are hard to keep if you worry about what everyone else got and struggle with realizing your worth. 

No matter what level you get on it will never be enough. You will always be chasing something that is not meant to be caught or doesn’t really even exist to be caught. 

The solution to deal with the feelings of inadequacy would be to just unplug from everything right? I realized it’s not that simple either. 

When unplugging you will have to deal with loneliness. People can’t be around you 24 hours a day. Now you have the feeling that no one wants to be around you. Being alone with your thoughts during stages of feeling inadequate is very scary because sometimes it feels like it’s damned if you do and damned if you don't and you can’t do anything right. 

I would say to anyone who feels inadequate in life my advice would be to separate your feelings from the facts in your life because they’re not the same. Your feelings are very important. Your feelings must be processed and thought of but your feelings aren’t the absolute truth. Are your feelings valid? Yes but imagine a life where you live a life based on only your feelings. The truth would never mean anything to you and you would be delusional. 

Celebrate the growth you’ve experienced no matter how small or big it is. Remind yourself of your growth and continue to work on the things you want to change in your life and yourself. 

We all have times where we feel less than and inadequate but always make time to build ourselves up before anyone else will. 

Love, Benny