Insignificant – How did I get here?

I’ve always battled with the insecurity of being insignificant. I feel like it’s a very common one to have these days, but it’s never really discussed. Ever feel like you’re always wanting more? More money, more fame, more attention, more love? We often mistake it for feeling greedy or shallow. I believe that it all boils down to not feeling like who we are in the current moment is not enough, that we’re insignificant to the world. We believe that if we have more of these things, our lives will magically become perfect, all our problems will disappear, and we’ll finally be satisfied. So, what do we do? We chase. We often mistake it for passion, convincing ourselves that it’s what is best for our future, forever chasing the carrot on the stick. I’m guilty of this. I got a university degree to prove how smart I was. It wasn’t enough so I did a Masters. That still wasn’t enough so now I’m doing a PhD. The punchline to this is that no matter how many different degrees and awards I got, I never felt smart enough. On the contrary, I often feel like an imposter every single time I started a new academic opportunity. Constantly waiting for the day that people around me realize how unimportant I am. However, the story doesn’t even start here, it begins right from childhood. 

When you think about it, we’re conditioned from birth to feel special. Our parents take us in their arms as babies and praise us constantly. Roll on your side, get praised. Giggle for a second, have some affection. I’m willing to bet that your parents were somewhat happy when you took your first poo. How many couples have you hear describing their children as the smartest or the cutest child they have ever seen? I guess that the number is pretty high. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s not a bad thing to praise, adore, and love children. We desperately need it to become functioning adults. Imagine the kind of person you’d end up as if your parents constantly belittled every single one of your accomplishments growing up. That doesn’t sound like a fun childhood does it? Chances are that you’d probably be in a prison cell somewhere. So, by choosing the positive route, the lesser of two evils is chosen, because what often hides under praise and love is expectations and pressures. If I give my child X and Y, then they will become Z in the future. Why can’t my child be like little Adam from down the road who is going to Law school, I gave them everything. Parents like to say that they would never think like this, but honestly, can you blame them if they did? If you invest time/money into something, chances are that you’re going to want a positive return on that investment.   

The worst part of it is that the older we get, the more that pressure becomes self-inflicted. We live in an age where on social media, we have access to the ‘best’ that humans have to offer at our fingertips. Powerlifting is my hobby and passion, it’s a weight training sport where you pick heavy things up and put them down. I’ve probably put thousands of hours into it during my life. Unfortunately, every time I open Instagram, there’s a 13-year-old who just started lifting already way stronger than me. See life isn’t always fair, people get head starts due to their race, intelligence, athletic ability, all the time. I tell myself that ‘it is what it is’ and try to move on with my day but I would be lying if I wasn’t screaming on the inside. It makes me want to keep pushing and pushing myself, to the point where it’s frankly now an obsession. An obsession to not be lost in the sea of mediocre lifters, to distinguish myself as special.   

Now all this sounds very dark and gloomy, which is not the intention of this blog. I am just outlining how I and many others like myself get to a stage in life where there is a need to prove ourselves, to someone, to anyone. We must show that we’re good enough and that we’re worthy of time and attention. We must fight for the space we occupy. We can’t afford to be insignificant. 

For a while now, I’ve been actively trying to find a way to ‘solve’ this problem. I’ve tried everything, burying myself in work, fitness, anything to distract myself from that nagging feeling of ‘Do more, be more, be better’. Was I busier? Yes. Did I feel any better? Absolutely not. I turned to self-help books. ‘Do these 50 things to change your life’ ‘10 daily habits that will jumpstart your day’. Do you want to know what I got from constantly consuming all this? A boosted ego. To the outside world, I looked more confident, more vibrant, happier. Think of it as painting over a mouldy wall. I wasn’t treating the mould; all I was doing was repeatedly painting over the wall. All I let anyone see was the pretty painted wall with no imperfection, but that mould was growing and spreading inside me. I was good at keeping up the mask, and on some days, even I believed that painted wall to be who I really was. But now and then, I’d see my true self, a glimpse of that mould and I knew that wasn’t happy at all. So, I decided to face it head on. Strip all the layers of paint back, get to know my true self, whoever that was. I needed a way to get away from distractions so I could focus on this new goal. So, for a short while, I became obsessed with walking. I told myself that I’d use the time to look inward and try to find the ‘why’. Why do I feel like I need everyone else’s approval? Why does their opinion matter more than what I think of myself? Why do I need to be significant? I’d love nothing more than to sit here and tell you that it solved everything, but big surprise, it didn’t, and fast forward a few months, I still need answers. However, I was on the right track and was determined to keep going. 

One evening I was taking my usual walk, and that overwhelming feeling came back in full force. A million anxious thoughts raced through my head. Am I progressing enough? Should I be doing more? Before I knew it, the dark spiral had begun. I’m usually good at spotting the signs that it’s about to happen but that day, it got me. Suddenly, everything fell out of focus, I couldn’t take another step as I gripped my chest trying to breathe. Luckily, there was a local park nearby, so I hobbled over, trying not to stumble over and took a seat. I removed my headphones which had been playing some heavy metal music, admittedly making the situation worse. I just needed to get away, from everything, from everybody. The next few moments, I just tried to exist without collapsing inward. However, this wasn’t a new experience. I had been here before, I knew that it would pass eventually. What happened next was probably the most intimate moment I had ever had with myself. 

I regained my breath and debated my next course of action. Do I finish the walk? Do I go back home? Can I be bothered to move right now? Instead, I chose to lay my head on the bench for a couple of minutes. To just be, without thinking about a million different decisions that needed to be made. In that moment, I looked up and there it was, the vastness of space. I felt it in my gut that this was the answer I had been trying to find for so long. In that moment, I felt insignificant but in a different way. I thought about where I was. I was on a park bench, on a floating piece of rock that’s racing through space at insane speeds. But the size of that rock is insignificant when compared to other places in our solar system. Did you know that you can fit 1300 Earths into Jupiter? Even better, the Sun can fit 1 million Earths. If you want a quick way to know how insignificant you are, look into the scale of the universe. It’s a truly humbling experience.  

On that bench I realised that although insignificance is terrifying, there is a lot of beauty in it. There’s beauty in the fact that the stars I was looking at were potentially being viewed by someone else, hundred of miles away. That same star could have been seen by someone who lived hundreds of years ago. Although I felt insignificant, I felt connected and more present than ever before. The people in the past, present or future experiencing the same sky will face insignificance. It’s not going to go anywhere so why run from it. Why not charge head first into it. So, what did I do? I raced home, bought a beginners telescope and here I am. This is the beginning of another chapter in my life and I thought it best to document it here. For the record, I have no clue how to use a telescope or stargaze but I figure that learning will also be a fun part of this experience. I am determined not to run away from insignificant anymore. Instead, I’ll be appreciating it in my own way. I’ll look up at the different stars, moons, galaxies and find the beauty in being insignificant. This is the ongoing story of that process.