If you knew you'd never feel ready, what would you do?
Maybe I shouldn't have asked that...
But I was curious.
I'm sitting across from a friend. She just introduced me to her partner, who I hadn't met before, and here I am already probing. In fairness, I did ask if I could. Actually, I said "can I ask you something?" which, yes, is itself a question (I don't care). I can't help it. I don't even think about it, it just always seems to slip in there right before I ask the thing I really want to know. Plus, I even said "are you comfortable with me pressing a bit?" before I pressed. She said yes (to both) and, now, here we are.
Sitting in the silence.
Uh oh.
We're sitting at a hightop. This is a brewery and the wooden tables are those communal ones. In catching up, we got to talking about how her partner is considering going back to school for a master's in counseling. Hell of a coincidence! She, too, is a thirty-something who's long been thinking about a career pivot. She's nervous (understandably). She called it imposter syndrome. So I told her about how I just got off the fence after sitting on it for far, far too long. The craziest thing, I said, was that I don't feel any sense of foreboding; no impending doom about having to go back to school to end up in the career that I want.
What I feel, actually, is relief.
But the thing she kept coming back to was not feeling ready. It certainly isn't my place to nudge her one way or another, so I asked her that question instead.
"If you knew you'd never feel ready, what would you do?
Would you still want to go get your master's?"
Hence the silence... Eventually, though, she sat forward, eyes wide. And a big grin spread across her face.
"Yes," she said.
"Absolutely."
* * *
If you knew you'd always feel like a perpetual imposter, would you go for the things you want in life?
Asking for a friend...
onward.
For more on this daily column, read the backstory here. And if you know someone who'd appreciate this, pass it along.