I am not only scared of failing, I am scared of confirming my worst thoughts about myself

Dear Delyara, If I apply and don’t get it, if I start and don’t sustain it, if I try and fall short, I don’t just risk disappointment. I risk handing evidence to the very harshest voice in me, the one that has always been waiting for proof that I am too late, too ordinary, too tired, too frightened, too damaged, too whatever to build the life I still secretly want. That voice has too much influence. I know that. Still, I organise my choices around not feeding it. Which means fear now often looks like practicality in my life. That is dangerous. Because it becomes harder to challenge something when it arrives dressed in respectable language.