Blog Post #4

School this week was surprisingly OK, as I didn’t find myself in a puddle of pessimism, however, my confidence, once again, has weakened. Nevertheless, I will begin by discussing my courage, which has been improved on since I last wrote about it. Let me start by explaining that this week, in my Creative Writing Elective, every student was to write and share their work with the class, anticipating feedback, criticism, compliments, etc.. This goes without saying, but I was absolutely terrified and was nervous at the fact that people whom I haven’t yet got to know and feel comfortable around, would be hearing and critiquing my work--my own personal poems. So, what did I do? I offered to go on Monday, which was very courageous, for me and surprising as well. Despite my constant worrying and overthinking, I thought that this way, I would get it out of the way, and stop stressing over it for the rest of the week. Unfortunately, I was unable to go the first or second day, to which I offered to go on the third day, and succeeded in doing so. The courage in this situation was me offering to go next, even though every part of me was working against doing so. Nevertheless, I presented and anticipated a lot of negative feedback, which is where my confidence began to sink. I constantly felt that every part of my poems were terrible and that I had no right to receive any positive feedback, making the situation ten times worse. Anyway, what I took away from this past week is that facing fears, though daunting at first, is the best way to deal with problems. Not to mention, that for everything gained, something is lost, and I think that this week I may have gained some more courage, but definitely lost some self-confidence in the process. Thanks for reading :)