The Voice
By Steven
W. Alloway
The Voice tells me, “You’re not good enough.”
But it doesn’t just tell me that.
It tells me, “You will never be good enough.
No matter how hard you try
Nothing you do will ever be right
Will ever matter
Will ever be enough.”
The Voice tells me, “Nobody loves you.”
But it doesn’t stop there.
“No one will ever love you,” it says.
“How could anyone love you?
You are not worthy of love.
Maybe some will tolerate you.
Maybe a few will pity you.
But they’ll never care about you.
They’ll never love you.
Not really.”
“What’s the point in trying?” the Voice goes on, “When
you know you’ll always fail?”
“Why even ask the question,” it demands of me, “When
you know before you begin that the answer, now and forever, will be No?”
“You can’t do anything right.
You’ll never be anything other than what you are
right now.
And what you are, whatever you are, isn’t worth
anyone’s time or trouble.
There’s zero chance that what you’re doing,
thinking, or planning will end any way but in disaster.
In epic, abject failure.
Because that’s what happens to everything you touch.
So why not save yourself
The embarrassment
And the heartache
And quit now
While you still have a chance
Before you even begin
Because as soon as you begin
You’ll fail
And everyone will know
That you’re a failure
Who isn’t good enough
And whom no one loves.”
I suppose if anyone else could hear the Voice
They’d tell me not to listen to it.
To ignore it, or even
To prove it wrong.
But I don’t.
More often than not,
I give the Voice my full attention.
I let it talk me out of
Whatever it was I had planned to do
Or say
Or be.
The logical portion of my own brain
Tells me it’s just nerves
Just second guessing
Or something called Impostor Syndrome
Which even afflicts some of the people I admire
most in this world.
People who have done amazing things.
People who are definitely good enough.
People who are definitely loved.
The problem is,
The Voice is usually louder than my logical brain.
The Voice is usually more persuasive.
And deep down, I can’t help but think
That the Voice hasn’t told me anything
I didn’t already know to be true.
