The Art of Believing

All you need is to believe! And it can take you places! (I won’t say Believe me, just read on). The Art of Believing is a post about my journey towards and a testimonial about believing.

I am an early 80’s kid and was a typical neglected middle child. The only memory I have of my early childhood is that of having no friends, being lonely, and extremely shy. I was average in my studies, enough to not get into trouble with my parents and teachers. If I didn’t go to school for a few days, nobody would miss me.

Most of my childhood was spent in having very low self-confidence and the feeling that I wasn’t good enough and everyone else was better than me. Things started changing a bit during college when I left home to live on my own in a hostel but the feeling never went away. Finished college and joined work, and looking back, I was very good at what I did. But the feeling of not being good enough never went away, no matter what I did, I was never happy with myself.

I took design lessons, I somehow was convinced that I was never going to be a professional interior designer, but it didn’t hurt to learn. I spent hundreds of hours researching material and styles and arrangements and colors, but it did nothing to my confidence. I started blogging about home decor, but I was so stressed about posting pictures of my home coz they were not good enough.

I quit my job, started Indyakaleidoscope, took care of mom, and in spite of being told by several people that they wouldn’t be able to do what I did, I never felt better about myself.

So what changed?

I don’t really remember what happened, but one day I was like “I am sick of this shit!”. Why should I feel inferior when I am not? The one and the only person that I need to impress is myself. I do things with great love and passion, and if I am happy about it then nothing else matters. There are millions of people who do what I do and do it well, but there is just one of me and I am good at what I do and I am happy about it. No matter what I do, there will be someone or the other who will hate it, why should that stop me from even trying?

Well, the realization came a little late, but it did come and it still wasn’t easy. It needed a lot of positive reinforcement at all times to maintain the attitude. That’s when I got my “Believe” tattoo on my left wrist, being a left-hander everything that’s required to do standing in front of a mirror, I use my left hand and I see it every day. On the days I didn’t believe, it forced me to stay focused.

What triggered this post? I was updating my Instagram profile when it hit me! In the last year, I have decorated for 4 projects and consulted for 3 more with one of them being a large commercial project. I no longer feel stressed about people judging my work. I’ve come a long way 🙂