Imposter
I always feel like I'm a little kid masquerading in a grown-up's body. I suppose it stems back to when I was a child and I thought my parents knew everything. I thought that once you reached a certain age the mysteries of the universe would magically be revealed to you. If I had known how little they really knew I'm sure I would have been very afraid.
I realize, at 35, that I don't know jack. Seriously. There are days when I go, "Ohhh....so that's how you_______________." Fill in the blank with whatever you like. There is just so much that I don't know.
I think this feeling of being an imposter is most prevalent at work. I tend to feel like a little kid even though I know I am a confident and effective professional. It's funny to think that my first professional aspiration as a child was to be a genetic engineer. I had visions of working in a lab, dipping pipets into test tubes, looking into microscopes and curing disease.
MUWWAAHHHAAAHHHAAAAAA.
*Sigh. Deep Breath. Wipe Tear*
MUWWAAHHHAAAHHHAAAAAA.
Okay. Okay. I'm over my hysterical laughter.
Eventually I settled on psychology. This is how my years as a counselor went:
"I feel so alone," my client would lament. "It's like no one ever listens to me."
Gee, I wonder what's on TV tonight. Oh Shit. What we're they saying?
I finally found my attention span and I think I actually helped a few people, but I am still amazed that I got paid for what I did. Could you imagine if I was a doctor?
"Doctor, I hurt all over. What is wrong with me?" my patient asks.
"Well, I would say you have a bad case of Moh Rahn's Disease."
"OH NO! Is it serious?"
"No. You're just a moron!" HAHAHAHAHAHA.
See. I'm an imposter. A fake. Just a big kid in an adult's body.
And then there's the whole matter of me being a parent. I'm the authority now. I'm the adult with all the answers who supposedly knows all.
Crap. Guess I'll have to fake my way through that one too.
I realize, at 35, that I don't know jack. Seriously. There are days when I go, "Ohhh....so that's how you_______________." Fill in the blank with whatever you like. There is just so much that I don't know.
I think this feeling of being an imposter is most prevalent at work. I tend to feel like a little kid even though I know I am a confident and effective professional. It's funny to think that my first professional aspiration as a child was to be a genetic engineer. I had visions of working in a lab, dipping pipets into test tubes, looking into microscopes and curing disease.
MUWWAAHHHAAAHHHAAAAAA.
*Sigh. Deep Breath. Wipe Tear*
MUWWAAHHHAAAHHHAAAAAA.
Okay. Okay. I'm over my hysterical laughter.
Eventually I settled on psychology. This is how my years as a counselor went:
"I feel so alone," my client would lament. "It's like no one ever listens to me."
Gee, I wonder what's on TV tonight. Oh Shit. What we're they saying?
I finally found my attention span and I think I actually helped a few people, but I am still amazed that I got paid for what I did. Could you imagine if I was a doctor?
"Doctor, I hurt all over. What is wrong with me?" my patient asks.
"Well, I would say you have a bad case of Moh Rahn's Disease."
"OH NO! Is it serious?"
"No. You're just a moron!" HAHAHAHAHAHA.
See. I'm an imposter. A fake. Just a big kid in an adult's body.
And then there's the whole matter of me being a parent. I'm the authority now. I'm the adult with all the answers who supposedly knows all.
Crap. Guess I'll have to fake my way through that one too.
posted by Sherri at 7:49 PM
4 Comments:
Yes. I feel the same way most of the time.
It does not help to work in a job that actually REQUIRES me to just MAKE STUFF UP a fair amount of the time.
There's an old Navy saying that keeps me from curling up in a ball under my covers and never coming out: "An ounce of image is worth a pound of performance."
So, if everyone THINKS I know what I'm talking about, it doesn't matter so much if I actually DO.
Please don't tell anyone I said that.
~Kurt
Priceless. You're not the only person that feels this way -- you just admit to it. I find myself b.s.-ing people at work all the time. If it sounds smart, they buy it. And parenting? Dear Lord. We won't have those answers till our kids are way grown and totally screwed up!
Excellent post, middle sis.
P.S. Me? Biomedical Engineering! Ain't that a hoot????
So what do you do??? I know what Kurt does, and I pretend to know what I do.
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