Let it shine, Let it shine....

There are many times when I wonder how I arrived at my professional place in life. I know that I’ve always been a good student, a level-headed person, and someone who’s always had a great work ethic. I’ve always been about my business. I was the salutatorian (the next in line behind the valedictorian) having maintained a 95% average throughout high school. I even have a picture posing with a very thin then Bronx Borough President Fernando Ferrer and black-haired Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson holding a certificate celebrating my academic achievements. I received the Presidential Academic Fitness Award and of course, I was voted most likely to succeed.

These achievements continued throughout college – Dean’s Scholarship Award recipient for all four years, Black Student Alliance President, Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. Vice President and numerous other awards and honorary society inductions. I was poised to do great things and achieve much.

And I have. I’ll preface that by saying I did secure a job that I was NOT particularly proud of once I graduated from college though it did support my heavy partying-work all day- play all night habit for three full years. But once I landed the gig at the ivy-league institution at which I remain employed, I cleverly worked my way up through the “ranks” from an entry-level position. Seven years after taking the job, I am now the Director of my division, leader of my 4-person team, a member of the department’s esteemed “Leadership Team,” two-time nominee of the department’s “values” award, effectively managing budgets, partnerships, politics and the occasional asshole (particularly proud of this last one since I haven’t gone BX Borough upside some folks heads) and a holder of a Masters Degree from this same ivy-league institution.

But there are these nagging thoughts that often enter my mind – “You aren’t good enough. You aren’t smart enough. You don’t really know what you think you know.” I sit in meetings listening to my colleagues and think “I don’t speak as eloquently as she does” or “What the hell did he just say? Mental note: remember that word and look it up later!” This bugs the shit out of me. Why would someone with all that I’ve accomplished feel so inadequate? These self-deprecating thoughts are beginning to paralyze me. I used to love speaking in front of people, holding court in the front of the room but now I abhor the thought. More and more often, I am frightened to speak up and speak out. I used to have so much self-confidence but now I’m filled with so much self-doubt.

What happened to me? I wish I knew.

I suppose many different things – like a “colleague” who consistently reminds you that you “forgot to say x, y, z when you spoke” or when you are speaking, cuts you off to say “what she’s trying to say is….” Or people talking about particular books, movies, politics, etc. leaving me at times to wonder if I actually reside on the same planet as some of them. I could go on with these examples but that would only be making excuses. And quite honestly, half the time these people are fronting and posing and don’t know what the hell they are talking about their damn selves. But that’s beside the point. Even if birds are chirping in my head when some people are speaking, I’m not supposed to let anyone steal my shine or take away my power. I know what I know and can probably teach them a thing or two.

I must reclaim my faith and belief in my own capabilities. I need to remind myself that I sit where I sit not because of some quota or need to fill the color or gender gap, but rather I hold my professional position in life because I worked hard for it. I am smart. I am good enough.

This famous Mandela quote says it best:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?" Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."