Insecurities... Oh, the fear they incite in us, the damage that they do to our self-esteem and how they make us wish we could feel better than others!
There may not be any official diagnosis for feeling insecure, but there’s no doubt that they can crush us.
Everyone has had their fair share of insecurities at a certain point in time in their life, and I'm no exception, so here’s my story.
I had insecurities over more than one aspect of my life: social life, social awareness and personality, as well as leadership opportunities and my physical fitness and capabilities.
I’ll start off with the first three.
Social Awareness, Social Life and Personality
I dreamt of being popular, having many friends and be swarmed like a celebrity. Part of that came in secondary school when I faced a lot of rejection and was avoided by many of the people there.
I was never satisfied with my social life, even after I entered JC. Despite the fact that more people were accepting and open to me, I felt that I didn’t have sufficient friends. I hated myself because I felt that I lacked the social skills to engage in a proper conversation with my friends. One day, when I was playing “burning bridges” with my classmates, one of them made a seemingly hurtful remark, even though he probably didn’t mean any harm. However, still healing from the deep scars of rejection and alienation in secondary school, I took the remark personally and felt that I was unwanted by my friends.
This sense of rejection made me want to have a good social life and have a lot of friends so that I would look like a “cool” guy. Even though I’m an introvert, a broad social circle was something I really wanted. I would take Snapchat videos every time I was having lunch in the canteen with my friends, so as to give myself a false sense of security that I had “a good social life”. At times in secondary school, I even had thoughts of styling my hair in a fanciful way to appear “cool” and “trendy” and to feel less of a misfit. I wanted to make a 180 degree change in my personality from an introvert to an extrovert.
I also felt that my life on social media was not good enough. I deleted countless Instagram posts I felt made me “look stupid”, maybe up to 200 of them, and I also tried to craft captions that would sound short and trendy in order to garner more likes or followers. I felt that my WhatsApp was too “dead” at times and from time to time, I would spam a few friends with messages I didn’t put much thought into so as to get rid of the unbearable silence in me. Seeing others texting away on WhatsApp even though I had no clue what they were texting about, be it a random stranger or someone close to me like my friend, could make me really upset and feel like escaping into my room to hide from it.
However, it was only after I graduated from JC that I realised that likes, followers and all these things are just numbers. They don’t say anything about your social life and having more likes doesn’t say anything about whether you’re a good person. I realised that people appreciate you having a social media account that is your account, and not you pretending to be someone else. Some people are living really joyful lives, yet they have nothing on their social media accounts. Why? They don’t need to post to be happy and simply choose not to. I’m not saying it’s wrong to have a social media account, but rather, when we use social media, we have to be discerning and not use it as a yardstick to compare our lives to that of others.
For all you know, behind the seemingly happy faces and joyful laughter could be a very lonely and dissatisfied soul.
I also realised I have to be realistic. I’m not meant to be a social butterfly, so I changed my target of having a large number of friends when I enter university to being able to foster meaningful and lasting friendships with a few good friends. While I don’t know what lies in store for me in university, I have accepted that I shouldn’t change my personality just to look like I have a good social life and I think this mindset will help me appreciate the existing friends I have.
Social awareness is important, but it’s even more important to be genuine and not put on a front. In fact, I believe many of my JC friends got sick of me taking those Snapchat videos after some time and would always cover their faces when I did so.
At the end of the day, it's about quality over quantity. It's more important to have meaningful and deeper relationships with a few friends rather than having superficial relationships with many so-called friends. Even with many friends, one may not be satisfied if the quality of their friendship is below par and void of meaning and purpose.
Leadership
Despite getting into the student council in secondary school, I felt that I was unfit to be one ever since I was in there.
I felt that I was too blur and one of the worst moments came in a council camp when I was in Sec 3. I wasn’t sure of what was going on and I needed to ask a lot of questions. Moreover, I was hardly at my best and failed to bond properly with my group. Even though no one criticised me at the end, I was my worst critic and I felt like a failure and that I wasn’t capable of being a leader. I didn’t know what was going on most of the time, and was usually in my own world.
It wasn't just big events that shattered my confidence; day to day duties were something I dreaded because students refused to respect my authority as a councillor and would always try to take advantage of me. This was made even harder when others tried to shun their duties while I tried to be responsible and do my job, which was the right thing to do but made me feel awkward and resulted in the duty system being ineffective as a whole. As such, I really yearned for the day that I would step down from the student council. I felt I hadn’t been chosen as an EXCO member for my CCA or council because I wasn’t good enough.
Another few moments that damaged my confidence really badly came when I was a facilitator at a camp, and I felt all alone because the other facilitators in the group and members wanted to disobey the camp committee’s orders and I refused to let them, so they told me I was being too serious and forced me to give in. Again, it wasn't entirely my fault, but I just wondered why my personality of being honest and obedient meant I was at the receiving end.
This was soon followed by me being turned down for leadership opportunities in JC, such as being in the EXCO for my CCA, as well as being an orientation group leader. I remember being told not to apply for the latter because I “couldn’t sustain long conversations”. I still applied, but the remark really shook my confidence and I messed up in the interview, despite showing my sincerity, and eventually got rejected.
Seeing my classmates and many other friends being accepted was a bitter pill to swallow, for I really wanted to make a positive impact on my juniors during their first few days in JC and be someone they could turn to for advice. I wanted to attain leadership opportunities in JC so as to redeem myself for those missed opportunities in secondary school, but the rejection did nothing but deepen my already hurting wounds and gave me a huge fear of being unable to grasp leadership opportunities in university. I had a number of leadership roles in primary school and was held in high regard by many of my teachers and peers there, but I felt like the past few years proved to be a fall from grace for me.
There wasn’t any major turning point for me, but I was given a glimmer of hope through a few small moments.
Firstly, talking to people and sharing my frustrations made me realise that being a leader is about what you do internally and not so much dependent on position. The first step is to build myself up as a person and to improve myself, before I carry on to inspire others. If I have been doing that, that is commendable.
It was also through planning certain events and talking to a few people that really made me feel slightly more confident in myself. Planning events made me learn skills I felt I lacked such as people management, situational assessment and time management, to name a few. In fact, talking to people who also faced similar self-confidence issues in the past really made me feel like I wasn’t alone. Many others also lacked leadership opportunities in a context like JC, where people are more concerned about A Levels than anything else, so I guess it's not so bad after all. Despite the rejection faced, the fact that I tried to get in was commendable.
I can’t say that I’ve completely gained back my self-confidence, but it’s already a stepping stone and we can’t disregard every little bit of improvement, no matter how small. There will surely be more opportunities to come in future, and I will definitely embrace them with an open mind. After all, being a leader is about the small day-to-day actions that one does and the positive impact he or she makes on the people around him or her.
Physical fitness
I’ve never been good at sports. I’m no LeBron James or Cristiano Ronaldo. However, my self-confidence was really badly hit in secondary school during PE lessons when I really flopped at playing soccer. Even though I may watch Premier League games week in and week out, I was (and still am) terrified of soccer balls flying in the air spinning at the speed of light. This was particularly bad during PE, where I’d always duck when the ball was flying right above me. I also couldn’t even pass properly and the worst part always happened when I was asked to play goalkeeper. There were a few occasions I was accused of being lazy simply because I couldn’t play properly and the worst time came when some of the guys acted like I’d been injured and rolled around, imitating the way I fell and pretending to cry out in pain. PE lessons were something I really dreaded and the humiliation of being ridiculed was simply unbearable.
There was no improvement when we played Frisbee during PE. No matter how close I’d run to my teammates, they’d prefer to pick out a long pass rather than make a short pass to me. It was just awful to feel that my teammates would rather have one less player on the pitch. During our final PE lesson in secondary school, I sat on the sidelines and watched my classmates play and felt much happier doing that as playing would just bring back those horrible memories.
These bad experiences had an impact that lasted way beyond secondary school days. At times, I’d prefer to let other friends take passes or throws in sports instead of me because I felt I wasn’t good enough. I’d always say things like “I’m damn bad” or “I suck” even when people praised me. As such, I really didn’t like to play sports and I’d rather go on solo jogs and swims because I felt that I was lousy at team sports. Every time on the field, I’d end up feeling really small because I would be unable to mark opponents properly or end up messing up my passes, and I’d want to get off the pitch as soon as possible. It was just a horrible feeling and I sometimes felt I'd find myself running around aimlessly.
While my capabilities at sport hasn’t improved much, my mindset certainly has. Playing a couple of friendly matches of Frisbee was good enough to help, and most certainly with the right friends. It made me realise that playing such games is about embracing the spirit of friendship and teamwork, and more importantly to have fun. Just like before, I had not many touches of the Frisbee, but I really enjoyed running around and embracing the friendly spirit. Even laughing about each other’s mistakes in a light-hearted way was fun.
It helped when I made a crucial throw that led to my team scoring, as well as a vital interception that denied the opposition from scoring. Instead of laughing at me, my friend tried to teach me how to improve my throwing and passing when we were having a water break. Overall, it was very heartening to have such an experience, and I graciously accepted the praise another friend said to me after the game instead of simply dismissing it.
Overall Reflections and Ending Note
My insecurities didn't affect me just in the aspects mentioned above, but in many other aspects of life. At times, I thought to myself: "Why is the world playing such a prank on me?" I felt very vulnerable and couldn't help feeling nervous when speaking in front of a crowd, even when just talking to a few friends. I felt that the loss in my self-confidence meant a huge fall from grace as I was once a jovial and confident boy many years ago. Even around my close friends, I was very tense and anxious. I couldn't joke, I couldn't laugh. Even seemingly harmless comments such as "don't be so serious" or "relax" could do huge damage to my mood. The shame I felt was so bad that I wished I'd been born a totally different person and I wanted to make a 180 degree change.
Now, I feel more relaxed when talking to friends and I’m able to have a slightly better sense of humour. I feel more confident and less afraid to talk about certain topics to friends and I feel significantly less vulnerable than before. I was once really scared of meeting new people and how people would judge my social awareness, but these fears have largely vanished now.
I guess the way that made me feel less insecure was to associate with the right people. It feels so much better when I can engage in a meaningful conversation rather than one about the usual superficial and cliché stuff (of course, light-hearted banter is enjoyable but too much of it isn't that meaningful). Talking about it has also helped me tremendously with the healing process; it made me realise that others have also struggled with other issues and this is what makes us human at the end of the day. Even if the issues are different from mine, there's always something we can relate to from out stories. If life was perfect, it'd be boring.
I guess there’s good reason to be optimistic on my progress and to credit these stepping stones, but there’s definitely more to come and a long way to go. These insecurities may still bother me from time to time, to varying degrees. However, it’s this journey to improving myself and overcoming these difficulties that makes the journey worthwhile and the satisfaction gained is incomparable. I will end off with a quote: “The only person you should try to be better than is the person you were yesterday.” Indeed, the effort to improve oneself rather than aim to be better than others is in itself praiseworthy.
And remember, if you ever feel insecure, you're not alone. It's very normal, so don't be ashamed of it.
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