We are being raised in the cult of confidence and fed daily on the gospel of “Believe in yourself” —
But only if that self shines.
Only if it’s polished.
Only if it performs.
Self-esteem became a currency.
And so we learned to perform okayness. To tuck away the trembling parts. To decorate the mask and call it authenticity.
Because that’s what we were shown:
That value is conditional.
That being liked is a survival skill.
That “fake it till you make it” isn’t deceit — it’s wisdom.
A rite of passage into acceptability.
Especially for the ones of us who were always too much, or not enough.
But here’s the quiet cost:
Masking becomes a second skin.
Confidence becomes a costume.
And we begin to confuse approval with belonging.
We start to believe the lie that the more you achieve, the more real you become.
This is the ache of false-self fatigue.
The slow erosion of your inner landscape,
traded piece by piece for applause you hope will finally feel like home.
But self-esteem — in the way it is sold to us — is brittle.
It cracks under failure.
It shatters under shame.
It is always asking: am I enough yet?
It can help us survive. Yes.
It can pull us out of despair when we need scaffolding.
When we’ve been made to feel invisible, unworthy, discarded.
And that’s not nothing.
But self-esteem, without self-compassion, becomes a fragile throne.
You can sit tall on it —
until the world stops clapping.
Until your smile falters.
Until your productivity dips.
What if we moved away from the pedestal? What if confidence didn’t have to be loud or linear? What if being real didn’t mean being always sure, but being always here — with yourself, in your softness, in your becomingness?
This is not a call to reject self-esteem entirely.
It’s an invitation to decenter it.
To root worth not in how brightly you shine
but in how tenderly you return to yourself in the dark.
Authenticity is not a performance.
It’s a practice of presence.
And truth?
Truth does not need to be packaged to be powerful.
So if you’re tired of pretending, if you’re ready to stop trading congruence for credibility, know this:
You do not have to “fake it” to make it. You can feel it —
and still make it. You can stumble, and make it.
You can rest, and still arrive.
There is no “better version” of you waiting at the end of the race.
There is only this you — this breath, this body, this soulwork in motion.
And that, in itself, is a revolution.
