The question, ‘Am I enough?’, does it ring something in your head. Because for me it has been a recurring thought ever since I understood the concept of achieving things. Everyone has certain expectations that need to be filled, be it set by society, your loved ones, or yourself. This concept has haunted me ever since.
My dreams always had the stress of doing well. What will they say? What will parents think? Everything these days is based on what people will think and say as if they are the ones marking a margin for how a person should be. From superficial beauty standards to the success of a person, everything appears with a tag of, was it good enough? As for me, my passion lied in singing or that’s what I was made to believe by everyone around me. “Oh my god, your voice is so delicate and smooth” “Your ability to hit those notes baffles me” “Never give up on singing, consider this a gift from God”, compliments like these about my singing abilities never stopped. From my vocal teacher to big music producers during recording sessions, everyone expected me to become the best selling artist. And I believed that was the life for me. I believed that singing was my only talent and I tried doing my best. I started singing from a young age, 4 years old, and since then I was confident on stage but soon I understood that maybe this was too stressful.
I started to lose confidence when people started questioning what happened to your voice? Do better. Why didn’t you win this competition? Why didn’t you practice today? These statements made me more anxious. Was I not good enough? Why is everyone questioning my ability? The disappointed faces on my parent’s faces killed me more. Doesn’t everyone hate disappointing his or her parents? Then I started setting expectations for myself. Was I satisfied with what I was doing? Was this the dream I want to pursue? And I realised it is not.
Singing was something which I loved to death but as a career, it wasn’t for me. I listened to myself and started pursuing what I want and what I had more confidence in. The thing that satisfies my heart at the end of the day. Because at the end of the day you are the one who has to be contented by your actions. It doesn’t matter if society doesn’t like what you are doing or what comments your relatives are making. In the end, you should be able to say to yourself that you did enough and that’s the only expectation you should thrive to fulfill. The expectations you have from yourself.
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