the why

One of my favorite bloggers recently wrote of the persistent stress dream that has plagued so many of us for so long. You know the one, where I've signed up for a class and forgotten to attend and forgotten to drop it and now it is finals and I'm going to FAIL....



I added my variations (one includes a school bus driving into my house to get me), but commented that meditations on WHY might be too long for a comment.



So this my meditation on why:



Those of us who are driven to be overachievers (yeah, you know I'm talking about you) often have secret (0r not-so-secret) fears that really we are inadequate. As the stress dreams reveal, we are deeply afraid that we really don't know, we aren't prepared, we will be found out.



I think, in my case at least, the truth is that although I have been told all my life that I am "smart, I have been rewarded academically throughout my long educational process for being "smart", I don't feel "smart".



I just feel regular. Like me. Nothing out of the ordinary. And on occasion, I in fact have felt pretty stupid or foolish.



Add to this the fact that in certain eras of my life I felt deeply that this "smart" thing, myth or not, was all I had going for me, the idea that others might find out the truth of my interior ordinary-ness was/is terrifying.



So, that is my meditation on why.