Feeling like a fake

import-os:

curiosityandcode:

Sometimes, I have days where I feel like a total fraud. I feel as if I have no business being a cs blog. These feeling prompted me to write the following post:

Now that I’m gaining more followers, it is just making me feel like more of a fake. I center my blog around computer science yet I feel like I have no knowledge on the topic. I still consider myself to be a beginner. Sometimes I just feel like I’m pretending or something, since I’m not as passionate and knowledgeable as other people.  

One thing I like about coding is that it gives me a task to focus instead of thinking of sad things. When I find a coding challenge, all of my thoughts focus on that. But now I just think about how much a I suck.

It’s not a very nice feeling. And it really hard to get out of this spiral, which is literally making my question everything.

That has sat in my draft for a few days. These are thoughts I have of-and-off again for a few months now. While many aspects of it still ring true, the sadness I was writing with as disappeared. I still feel like I’m “faking till I make it” but I also know that its okay to feel that way. I can see clearly that even though I’m far from where I want to be, I have also come so far.

I felt terrible as I was writing that. But once I wrote that draft, (along with some sad depressing poetry), I stopped worrying. I stopped thinking about a I felt and focused on something else for a few hours. It does not help to hold on to negative feelings.

I know how hard, confusing, and scary it is to start learning something new. And I wanted to post this  because I know what I’ll probably feel that negative about myself again. So I want to let myself and everyone feeling unsure of themselves, that you are not alone. Sometimes, you will feel like an impostor, and that’s okay. Take a minute, breathe, and feel what you need to feel. And then let those feelings go, and keep learning.

I think that applies to everyone. Not just beginning coders, but artists, writers, scientists and everything else as well.

If you feel like you are not good enough; like you are a fake just pretending, welcome to the club. I feel like that too. How about we stop worrying about being good and just focus on learning?

I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of cs, but that’s not going to stop me from jumping in to the fray and helping others! If I Fuck up, I learn from it. I’m constantly learning about cs and honestly that’s why I love it so much. You read an article on a topic and there’s always something that intrigues me to learn more, and that cycle repeats itself. None of us cs blogs on here are experts, and we all have our own strengths. But the fact that we have a community on here is what makes us great!