In My Head

I’m just a poor boy

Though my story’s seldom told

I have squandered my resistance

For a pocketful of mumbles

Such are promises.

The hardest thing I have ever done is to have confessed doubts. Doubts about promises and commitments made to/by those that matter to me. Realistic doubts about whether things will withstand, whether I shall deliver.

I’ve grown to demand strength of myself. And honesty. And a burning sense of optimism that has more to do with strength and honesty than is apparent. 

It’s laughably easy to call yourself an optimist, isn’t it? It only requires you to think things will fall in place just fine, right? Added bonus: it makes you sound bright and sunny and rather like that delightful little sanguine creature everyone loved in that new movie. Marvellous. Positivity to add to the good vibes in the Universe.

But a true sense of optimism presupposes a conviction about the issue at hand, as does a true sense of pessimism. A conviction born of an honest evaluation - where “honest evaluation” is a neat case of redundancy - of your own work and input; an evaluation that reeks of integrity. An evaluation that is founded on a reasonable standard; one that is its own defence in a rational argument. It’s an optimistic remark only when the evaluation suggests things are going good and are likely to. Optimism has more to do with your own ability, strength and the willingness to be true to indicators of their performance, than not. It’s realism on a good day, in a situation with good prep.

It’s too bad, then, that the same rules apply to doubts. A doubt is not about imagining things, nor is it about wanting to complicate matters. It’s not about cynicism or jinxing commitments and it’s certainly not about going back on your word. It’s an honest evaluation that reeks of integrity – even when you wish it didn’t, even when such an evaluation is the last thing you want to collide with. And its inevitable appendage is trust in the parameters of evaluation, which translates to strength to voice the doubt.

Perhaps it’s hard to confess those doubts because your standard of parameters is your own. You can’t be sure if it is shared by one other or a million others. Your idea of reason may or may not match another’s. But if it’s honest and just and free of contradictions and irrationality, chances are you’re thinking straight.

Find something inside of you that must be shared with those outside. Write about it. Find something inside of you that must be shared with the insiders. Do it. Write about it. Honestly. Thus ends a note to myself, one tucked away for future use.