Primož Hadalin / Essays

Cure for imposter syndrome

Jan 7, 2021

Most likely, it’s only you who thinks you’re not good enough. Your “operating system” has a bug that raises too many instances of NotGoodEnoughException.

Even if someone else thinks you’re not good enough, it’s probably because they have this bug too. People climb many hierarchies—power, money, popularity, etc., and in doing so, they advertently, but more often than not, inadvertently put other people down to lift themselves. Have this in mind when someone is rude to you.

How to fix this bug? The solution is not that hard, but it requires time + effort. What you have to do is first install the mindfulness* module. This module interrupts the cognitive module each time NotGoodEnoughException is raised and puts the handling of this exception at the top of the priority queue. In a sense, good mindfulness could be compared to having decent server logs—situational awareness for the self.

If you think the above paragraph is written poorly, your “OS” probably raised NotGoodEnoughException just now ;)

You handle the exception as follows. Get familiar with the /self/v2/mind API endpoint and make a POST request with the following body each time NotGoodEnoughException is raised:

{
  "youAreEnough": true
}

It might take weeks, months, or even years before the number of exceptions starts to drop, but it does drop. The reason this works is that it’s the real you, the one who experiences pain, joy, and life, the one above thoughts, emotions, and sensations, who decides to “program” your “kernel”. The key is within you.

To supercharge, consider running install patience –save-dev and opening an issue at the friend/talk repository.

Take care!

Update: This essay has a follow-up post called The present moment is not enough.

* Eckhart Tolle, who I referenced, teaches about awareness and presence. He does not use the term mindfulness, but I used it anyway because it's popular.

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