Writing about ideas makes me feel vulnerable.
Sure, I’m confident in sharing my experiences — after all, it’s my life, and I know it best.
But when it comes to ideas, I freeze.
I haven’t mulled them over enough to feel comfortable discussing them. It’s like I can talk about how I experienced something but not about the ideas themselves.
My fear of vulnerability stems from being afraid of criticism and ridicule. What if someone attacks my thoughts and my truth? That’s what I dread the most. I don’t want to come off as dumb. Being seen as intelligent has always been part of my identity, yet I often feel like a fraud when praised for it.
Expressing my opinions is where I feel most exposed.
I feel like I should have my opinion very carefully constructed from many sides and get the “correct” one. I feel like I should be right. If I am wrong, I feel like a failure.
But this blog helps me practice. It teaches me that opinions don’t define me. I can change my mind, learn, and grow.
That is what I am working on.
Ideas and opinions do not need to be my identity. I can have them, discard them, change my mind, and go on. That is still very hard for me to do.
I feel like if I am wrong, I am bad in some way.
I do not want to be seen as stupid or shallow.
That is why I feel like I should research something very well before I have an opinion. Of course, it is good to do research, but I am starting to understand that I can always say what my thoughts are — what my experience has taught me.
Confidence, I’ve learned, keeps most people from bothering you. I’m confident in my appearance, so comments, good or bad, don’t bother me much. But when it comes to my mind and my intellect, it’s a different story. I’m not sure why. Maybe I should journal about it sometime.
Blogging is an experiment for me. It’s about expressing myself and pushing myself out there to see how I react. Sometimes it’s weird when people in real life mention something I’ve written. They know more about me than I do about them.
I have written so much that I have mostly forgotten what exactly I have published here.
Also, on Medium and my website, I do not feel like I am interacting with people that much; my writing just sits there. There are mostly no comments — none negative or positive — so I have no idea how people react to what I write.
In a way, it does not matter. Why? It is mostly an inner journey for me. I guess at this point, it is good that there is no interaction. I like what I write, but I know that it is not that good. Right now, I am putting my reps in. Training.
I admire people who have strong opinions. For me, it’s a struggle to understand who I truly am. But writing helps me explore that. It’s about discovering who I am and learning to articulate thoughts I’d usually let pass by casually.
I’m still learning to be okay with not knowing everything, to ask questions when I do not know something, and to admit when I’m lost. It’s all part of accepting myself, letting go of shame, and living authentically.
So, yes, I’m afraid to share my ideas and what I’m reading. But I’m learning to overcome that fear. Maybe my opinions are flawed sometimes, but they’re mine.
And that’s worth sharing.
But some things from my past are still too raw to share publicly. Maybe someday, after some 10 more years. 😀
But for now, I’m content with the journey. By writing to my younger self, I realised how much it could have helped if I had found someone writing about what I write now.
That’s why I persist, despite feeling vulnerable.