I have a confession to make. It’s a confession that I’ve told very few people, and most of those “very few people” don’t even believe me when I tell them. This confession is big and may blow your mind. You may even want to hold onto your seat or grab a big teddy bear to squeeze when you learn what this confession is.
Are you ready? Onehundredandthreepercent ready?
Okay, here it goes…
I have no idea what I’m doing.
Phew, we can all breath a little now. Now that doesn’t sound too terrifying at first, now does it? No, of course not.
But let’s dive into the nitty-gritty of this.
I’m really good at look all put together all the time. I wake every morning, get dressed, and drive to my first job at Web Services at Samford University. For the next three hours, I sit behind a computer and write page descriptions and page titles for the Samford website. Let’s be honest. I have no idea what I’m doing. Maybe these titles sound catchy to potential students, but at the same time, maybe they don’t. Maybe the page descriptions make you want to click the link? I mean, how exciting can a page description about a marketing minor really be?
At eleven, I leave Web Services and go pick up HC, the 12-year-old boy I babysit, from his junior high school. On the drive home, I realize I didn’t make any plans for us, and I have to entertain HC for the next 6 hours. Once again, I have no idea what I’m doing. Somehow, we get through the next 6 hours. His parents come home from work, and I head back to my apartment to find some dinner.
When I open the refrigerator door, I see the shelves packed with food. Very little of that is mine though. I only have five or six items in there. I have no idea what to make for dinner. I can cook pasta, grits, chicken, and cookies. Oh, and rice. That’s the extent of my cooking abilities. I have no idea what I’m doing.
After dinner, I head to the JMC lab to work on editing a 45 minute documentary on the homeless in Birmingham. I’m still working on importing all the film. The first try halfway-failed, so I’m starting all over. It’s moments like those when I realize I have no idea what I’m doing. When I’m finished importing film for the day, I play around and see if I can even figure out how to move the film clips into the folders. It’s been 2 weeks and I still haven’t figured this out.
My roommate finally comes home and asks me for the money I owe her so we can pay for rent and utilities. Wait, since when did I become an adult?
After dinner, I watch yet another episode of Lost, have a conversation about who-knows-what with my awesome roommate, and then turn off the lights and head to bed. The last thought that enters my head before I fall asleep is the one I’ve been thinking all day. I have no idea what I’m doing.
When people ask me about my life, I sound like I have it all together. “I work part-time for Web Services at Samford University and nanny 30 hours per week. In the evenings I work on editing a documentary I’ve been shooting on the homeless that I hope to use to raise $10,000 for nonprofits in Birmingham, and on the weekends I’m either working at the Wright Center as an usher or travelling the southeast doing photography for 5K races.”
This may be what I say, but what I want to say is, “I work part-time for Web Services trying to make our website better. However, I’m not really sure if I’m doing the right things all the time. I also nanny 30 hours, but half of the time, I have no idea what to do with the kid. I’m desperately trying to edit some film I shot earlier this summer, but I can’t even seem to do the most basic things on the software. I want to raise money for some local nonprofits, but I don’t even know how to make that happen. I know I’m going back into public speaking and that terrifies me. I also travel around the southeast shooting random photography gigs, but I usually don’t know if I’m taking the right type of photos or if I’m even using all the right settings and equipment. I’m a mess, and I have no idea what I’m doing.”
I really wish all of us could be perfect and actually have an idea about what we’re doing, holding the knowledge that we did the right things, are doing the right things, and will do the right things.
However, that’s not possible.
So all I really wish (and pray for) is that we would all just be really honest with each other. None of us have our s*** together. We can try to and pretend like we do, but that’s a lie. Let’s just be honest and authentic with each other and admit that we are broken people and have no idea what we’re doing.
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