Friday’s Culture Casserole: How Come Believing in Yourself is so Hard?

Contributed by Tanya S.

The Muppets are back.  Jason Siegel (How I Met Your Mother) wrote and starred in the new Muppet movie as Gary, a Muppet fan from Smalltown.  The old Muppet Theater has been closed for more than a decade and is going to be taken over by evil-tycoon, Tex Richman. He plans to knock it down and drill for oil.  The only way to save it is for Kermit to reunite the Muppets and raise $10,000,000.  The Muppets have scattered all over the world – Miss Piggy is editing for a plus size magazine; Fozzie is in Vegas with his own act of faux Muppets; Animal is at an anger management camp.  All of this was brought to Kermit’s attention by Gary’s brother, a lonely Muppet from Smalltown named Walter.

Walter has been an outsider all his life.  As the only Muppet in Smalltown, he has felt alone and unwanted.  The only thing that bought him joy was his relationship with his brother Gary and The Muppet Show.  In his journey to help save the Muppet Theater, he is welcomed by the Muppets and taken into their group.  He is even asked to perform at the telethon by performing his own special talent.  The only problem is he doesn’t have one!  My favorite line from the movie is Gary’s response to Walter’s fear, “It is easy to believe in other people. Believing in yourself is the hard part. Believing in yourself means you are growing up.”

Believing in yourself is a constant challenge.  You can have the greatest confidence in one area and none in another.  Then once you gain confidence, some new thing pops up and you have to start all over again.  For me, I did not have confidence in myself at work.  Ironically, I always did well.  I would fight for promotions and raises and I had a stellar work history record.  Although I saw I could do the work, my lack of confidence emerged when it came to my choice of jobs.  I chose low-paying jobs because I felt that high-paying jobs would be too hard for me and I would fail.

After being unhappy for so many years, I decided to open my own business.  The entire process has been scary and still makes me freak-out periodically, but it has taught me that I am capable and should believe in myself.  Now each day instead of being scared of the work I have to do, I just walk over to my computer and start working.  I guess I have finally grown up.