You are on fire.
Okay, not literally, though that might actually be the worst feeling in the world.
Let me start again:
You are on. On top of your game, on top of the world. You have found your groove, just plugging away at something. Overall, you are kicking ass.
Let’s say it is a work-project-something. You are just all over it. No one has ever done a better job than you. You have been complimented on your progress. You are feeling good. You are feeling better than you’ve ever felt doing your job. You were unsure of yourself before, but now you’ve figured it out and got this shit on lockdown, whatever the hell that means.
Bring on more responsibilities, you are thinking. Look how awesome I’m doing now! I can do ANYTHING! You have cracked some sort of Super Secret Code of productivity and efficiency. This is going to be a good goddamn day.
Someone – a boss? A coworker? comes over and asks a question. “Did you remember to…?”
Or the more-dreaded “Are you aware that…?”
Oh.
You did not remember to. You were not aware that.
Well, shit.
Suddenly – whoosh! There goes the air from your sails, the helium in your balloon. In the teeniest of tiniest of time frames, you have been reduced to a withered, sloppy, shell of a person. No longer feeling ten feet tall, you feel as if you are physically shrinking. Or is that wishful thinking? You cower, and lower your voice. Did anyone else hear that? Why didn’t anyone say anything to me sooner?
Your boss wasn’t yelling at you. Maybe it was just a passing thought. Maybe he was even smiling as he said it. But – for reasons beyond your comprehension – his bit of constructive criticism wedged itself into a heretofore-unknown chink in your armor of self-confidence. He completely-unknowingly found your weak spot, and you are now toppled, crushed and crumbled in a miserable mess around it.
But time hasn’t stopped as you lay there at Ground Zero. Your phone continues to ring, your job continues to need did. But you’ve been rebooted; you second-guess every word, every action, every thought. The only thing of which you are completely and totally sure is that YOU KNOW NOTHING. YOU ARE NOTHING.
It might not happen often, but when it does:
ho. lee. shit.
* Of course, I am exaggerating. I can think of zillions (there I go again) of worse feelings in the world. This just currently tops the ever-changing list. For example: my Dad once got metal shavings in his eye. To remove them, they had to numb his eye and DIG THEM OUT. While he LITERALLY watched them coming at him. HOLY SHIT. Actually, I think this has happened to him twice.
My father is a BEAST
the sloppy copy 