On rare occasion I find myself buried in a virtual avalanche of self-doubt. I suppose we all feel this way from time to time. Are we “good enough?” Are we truly “loved?” Do we have real “friends?” Would anyone care if we suddenly fell off the face of the earth
So at one time or another, we’ve probably all been able to relate to the children’s tune which goes “Nobody loves me, everybody hates me, guess I’ll go eat worms…” Rodney Dangerfield summed this feeling up by saying “I don’t get no respect.”
My most recent such tumble into the whirling abyss occurred as I was preparing for the upcoming “bazaar season.” I happily filled out applications for numerous such events in order to sell some of the books I’ve written—particularly my new Christmas collection.
But the very first response I received was a rather rude “you don’t qualify” message from a certain event organizer right here on the peninsula.
“Please tell me why you think I don’t qualify?” I asked.
“Your sale items are not hand-crafted.”
Sincerely puzzled, I sought further clarification. “I wrote every word on every single page. I designed the cover, acquired the ISBN, did the layout myself, even took my own author’s photo. So how is that not made by my own two hands?”
“You didn’t print the books yourself,” she insisted.
So I tried to let it go at that. Tried, because it kept niggling at the edges of my otherwise happy day. Was I not “good enough?”
A dear friend finally set me back to the right way of thinking. “You’ll get the last laugh,” he said. “When your books are nationally popular, they’ll be begging you to participate in their little local bazaars. Hakuna Matata. There are no worries.”
So I’m back to holding my head up high, reassured that I am, indeed, “good enough,” and celebrating the fact that my time is still yet to come, but is very near at hand. And how fun it is to look forward with anticipation to that happy event!
Hakuna Matata, indeed!