if who i am is what i have and what i have is lost, then who am i?

i've been feeling the effects of the ugly spectre of insecurity very frequently lately. i don't place importance on myself, and am emotionally dependent on the people and things around me. who i am is no longer me, but rather these external things. really don't what's been coming over me. i certainly don't remember being like that last year, or even before that. perhaps as they say, it's just a phase. well i sure hope it doesn't last long.

there's this thing about the private victory that just makes it so hard to be won. i can't deny that i haven't been feeling comfortable with myself. at all. like, what's there to be proud of. i don't excel in sports. i don't excel in music. and i think what really bugs me is that my degree is impossibly high, and it's not as if it's because i've been mugging impossibly hard until 3am every day and am thus topping every subject. i don't know why i'm like that. i don't know what i can do to feel better about myself.

then perhaps i'm consumed by the twin tumours of competing and comparing. i constantly look around me at others and that's when i feel small and insignificant.

yes competition is healthy when we compete against ourselves, or when it challenges us to stretch to our fullest potential. but i guess i've overdone it. this is when i tie my self-worth to winning, or when i use competition as a way to consciously place myself above others. when competition is used to create a self-image relative to others, ordinary fears and frustrations become exaggerated. i start to think that only by being the best will i be eligible for the love and respect i seek.

comparing with others also appears to have taken a vice-like grip on me. i feel myself building my life based on where i stand as compared to others. but how not to, when in our daily lives, we constantly meet moments which make us feel superior or inferior? i pick up one of those glossy magazines, and see people who look better, dress better. i look around, and i see people who just seem smarter, more confident, more talented. everywhere i turn, i am reminded that i lack talents, i make so many mistakes, i do not excel in anything. and i feel that i don't measure up, that i am inferior.