Infectious Confidence
“Fake it ‘til you make it”— that’s a lie.
A few months ago while I was in a pit of self-doubt, the urge to contact a recent graduate of the program repeatedly pestered me until I gave in. I hadn’t known her too well, I didn’t even have her phone number, but I felt a pressing awareness that an infectious air of student body confidence had thinned out after she left.
Asking her how she remained so self-assured here, she credited it all to “faking it until you make it.” From someone like her, I truly couldn’t believe it. From my perspective, that of a bystander, she certainly never seemed to be faking anything. She was just doing everything– owning her accolades, butting in when getting blocked out, and holding her tongue when the rest of the room was whispering about her.
In my disbelief, I aimed the dissatisfaction I felt from hearing this false “truth” at the phrase itself and the way we’ve validated its invalidity. “Fake it until you make it” isn’t a high-flying flag, it’s a lousy facade of shortcoming that plagiarizes bravery. How can you be faking something when you’re doing something? How can you be setting up the example if you’re the one already exemplifying it?
But in response to the wisdom I was seeking, this being a way to revive general confidence, she made a necessary point: “It is much easier to be what you can see others being, but it's important to lead when you know what others need, too.” She was referring to both her and myself as women leading a charge in a male-dominated program, but these first few weeks of school have completely erased my presumption that women are the only ones who need to encourage each other.
The cluster of us is just that of a bunch of artists, first and foremost and only. We have unified survival instincts, the same predators of self-doubt, among all else there is to fear. And what is more daunting and personal than sharing what only you or I can shape?
For some hidden blessing of a reason, though, I see that far and away, more people are sharing this semester. When I open my computer to write on Mondays, the second thing I think about (after thinking, “what am I going to write about?”) are the examples of my friends who are not faking it, but making it.
Recurring recent highlights include: a friend whose strategy it is to tell more and more people that she’s making a Christmas album to hold herself to actually doing it; a friend who has created a page dedicated to discussing common mental health-related struggles among jazz musicians; and a friend who has launched a creative project that appears to be a hybrid of so many mediums, I can’t even begin to describe it.
These are the bravest people I know, and they are faking none of it. They’re going to make it out there. I’m curious to know, what are you making?
