Diffidence

Dear diffidence,

Why won't you let go?

You put my efforts in vain,

Pull me down to the floor.

You drive me insane,

Shutting every other door.

You put to death my ideas,

My beliefs and my dreams.

You befriend my fears,

My inhibitions, my shame.

Much have I trudged

from mere nothing to the now.

Yet you toss my proud feats

To luck and nothing less.

You delight in my fall,

And my stagnant progress.

You rejoice my stall

And pin down my legs.

You make me walk circles;

Always back to level one.

My accomplishments thus

Being little to none.

Why keep pushing the boulder

that refuses to budge?

Why wait for a day

that is never to come?

Yes, you've engulfed me.

You've plagued my being. 

How I wish to starve you!

To kill what you feed – 

Every suppressed opinion,

Every pause, every backspace,

Every second and third thought,

Failed attempts of what I sought.

You convince me I am wrong

That there's nowhere I belong.

That I'm to hide in my cocoon,

Embracing failure 

Once and for all. 

But deep down lives a voice

that believes in braving storms.

I'm not enough, you've said,

But not this voice in my head,

The voice that steers free from

your condescending jabs. 

I'd fallen prey to you

Much as I tried not to.

You labelled me nothing

And now I call you the same.

For, here lives the voice 

you are incapable to tame.

Here lives the voice

Who'll prove you wrong,
Do away with your sneers,

And find where I belong.

…

.

Sometimes we don't even need others to make us feel inferior, our very own diffidence will do the job for us. Have you been there? That place of make-believe where people around you might think greatly of you but you know that you are not what they think they are. It isn't just a belief for you, you just know that you aren't good enough. You look around you and find a crowd who seem to be a hundred times better than you. You are not like them. You are not one among them. And the thought lingers in the mind and weighs you down with time. But there is always that tinge of self-esteem inside you that will help you keep going even when diffidence gets the better of you. Although, to snap out of it, what every one of us would crave for is recognition. When we fail to get the recognition we begin to wonder if our efforts are worth anything at all. 

Let's hope to keep diffidence at bay. Cheers to our self-esteem, who we are, and all that we believe in.

..

Linking to #FridayReflections