Halfway into my six-hour flight to attend a meeting on short notice, my legs are nervously bouncing off each other. They carry so much weight. The weight of my mind, the weight of my heart, the weight of my energy that is in a frenzy to find an outlet.
I, for the longest time, haven’t felt this challenged. Or maybe that’s what I tell myself. I’ve zoomed past my 20s doing things that felt pertinent and challenging. But I always had deterministic outcomes based on meritocracy. I hardly left things to chance. A failure could be routed to exact steps that led to it. A success was underwritten with coordinated steps that could be repeated.
Leaving things to subjectivity, macro-factors, or to whoever across the table has already decided how the world works and where you fit in it - is the most daunting idea for someone who has grown up believing that the world opens up with keys you inherit through grades and promotions and that the only way to end up at a closed door is to have lost them, or worse, forgotten to bring them. I shed a lot of this perspective to be a founder, and welcomed serendipity with open arms. The problem is that serendipity is a close cousin of uncertainty. One gives you stories, the other riles you up with anxiety.
Relationships, and my ability to form and sustain them, are a mystery to me. I have deep friendships, a co-founder and a team who trust and respect me, romantic relationships that had graceful peaks and unshattering endings. But entering rooms where I’m wanted because of my reputation and excitement to meet me is still scary to me. To most it might seem like the bed on which the outcomes lie, and that everyone in the room wants me to succeed. To me, my mind races to cure my imposter syndrome. This has been evident in friendships, dates, important meetings, pitches.
It’s understandable to read this as social anxiety, and that experience and success will eventually override this discomfort. However, let me challenge that thought for a bit. My upbringing, experiences, and results have always felt like I have undue, even earned, advantages that are shadowed by my weaknesses. I could be selected for national-level debates, but forget my points on stage. I could ace exams on intelligence, but suck at rote learning. I could prepare well for interviews, but would get nervous out of exhaustion and wanting it really bad. I could learn my parts for a show, but fail to improvise should Murphy’s law kick in. I could go on a date with someone I really like, but would say something stupid because I’d think she’s beyond my league.
Adulthood has given me stories to reverse these experiences. It has allowed me to believe that I do control outcomes and the narratives around them. It has given me playbooks to write, strengthen, and repeat. It has given me confidence and advocates. A natural redeeming arc. However, it has not - yet - helped wipe away the dust on my windshield, the crushed piece of paper I carry under my feet, the gnawing feeling that failure is as imminent as success is inevitable. I go through emotional rollercoasters in a span of minutes. A rush of euphoria immediately followed by anticipation. A deep desire to get something joined by the ease of letting go if it doesn’t.
Founding a company is an experience similar to a gut cleanse. It brings out things you’ve hidden away for years to the surface. It is an excruciating, vulnerable exercise towards clarity. It feels terrible until you find your rhythm. It also is a reminder that experiences are more cyclic than linear. The euphoria from a win wears off faster than a puff of nicotine. The pit in your stomach from a bad conversation, or a bad outcome, is a feeling you’re supposed to get used to. You chase sustainability, but are forced to live with scheduled cleanses. Energized, but sleepless. Delusional, and scared. Optimistic, yet restless.