iMPOSTER

You’re just like an angel and so it’s with regret that I announce that I am an imposter.

I do, of course, wish I was as special as you are; I mean, who wouldn’t!

There are levels of perfection such as that of the body and that of the mind.

How I wish that there were ways for me to improve myself in terms of self-belief.

When you live in a place like I do, which is to say England, then it’s difficult.

Many people in this country believe in themselves and I’m surrounded by them.

If I lived in a country of underperformers then I’m sure I’d feel much happier.

Being at the sharp end of a sharp country with sharp people sure can take its toll.

I don’t mind talking about myself to some extent but it’s difficult to go deeper.

By going deeper I mean that in my depths there are things that I am ashamed of.

I guess that many people have things that they are ashamed off but I don’t know them.

I only know myself and there’s a good chance that this will continue except that …

I was on a call today with a voice and by that I mean that I have no idea of what this person looks like at all except to say that she probably looks Indian because she lives there and has an Indian accent and she is probably female because the title on her profile on our directory is Miss but really that’s all I know; I mean, there isn’t even a picture on her profile so I have no idea so this is what I did: I talked to her in a stilted way so that at times I would say things about spreadsheets and at other times I would say things about the weather here in England, which was nice, but not ultra-revealing in terms of either of us getting to know about each other, which was, I guess, totally appropriate because I was nominally in charge of her in terms of me having to hand over some work to her and giving her training to be able to do this work and it’s not as if I need any kind of personal relationship with her; in fact a personal relationship would have been highly inappropriate in terms of my age and status as her trainer and so it’s good that we didn’t go anywhere personal but still, there was a gap, and by that I mean that you can’t relate and teach if you know nothing of the proclivities and tendencies and inner-workings of a person and so this is what I did: I stopped asking lame and intrusive questions like ‘what’s the weather like’ and ‘where did you study’ and instead I started to share things about myself and by this I mean that I would tell little stories about myself like. this one time after Microsoft Excel was giving us trouble I worked out in my head when I first started using spreadsheets and then calculated how long ago that was and then I would say that I’ve been using spreadsheets now for x number of years, which was probably more years than she’s been alive, although, as I said, I have no way of knowing this, and so, I said, nothing really fazes me about spreadsheets and she said wow, probably in reaction to the number I quoted rather than the assertion that I was not fazed but anyway the point is that as a result of this and other innocuous things that I said she started to spontaneously, or at least a little more spontaneously than before, say things about herself and her situation which, to me demonstrates that …

There’s a good chance that if I change the way I approach life then it will change how it approaches me.

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