Why We Have To Stop Being So Self-Deprecating
I’m probably never going to be able to share something I wrote or appeared in or on without saying, “here I am being a goofball!” but at least hopefully, because I’ve discussed this publicly now, one day I can at least say, “hey this is a super cool thing I was able to do and…
“Nothing.”
That’s always my response when someone asks me what I’m up to. (Unless I’m watching TV then I will tell you in detail where I am in the series and how I feel about it and did you see that LOOK in episode 5??)
But this is a problem. Anytime I have anything going on in my life my response is to say everything is, literally, “NBD.” If someone tries to congratulate me on something, forget about it, I’ll melt into a puddle on the floor before I accept that maybe I’m doing something worthy of being noticed.
The problem is, I wasn’t always this way. I was a good student in high school, I remember feeling pride that I won the science fair in 7th grade. I would talk to anyone that would listen to me when I got accepted to NYU for film & TV. But somewhere recently, (and yes, I’m going to partially blame the internet), I realized that I’m terrible at talking about myself seriously. Anytime I express something real I’m excited about I feel lame. And that’s bullshit.
We learn (and I’m not sure who the ‘we” is here — maybe it’s “people my age” maybe it’s “people on the internet” maybe it’s “women my age on the internet,” I don’t know) to not be excited about things for fear of getting mocked. For me it’s definitely, a feeling that if I pretend like I don’t think anything I do is serious or exciting then if it fails it’s like, “well, whatever, I didn’t care about it anyway.” But I did care about it! I care when I get positive feedback on something I write and I care when things are going well for me.
I’m probably never going to be able to share something I wrote or appeared in or on without saying, “here I am being a goofball!” but at least hopefully, because I’ve discussed this publicly now, one day I can at least say, “hey this is a super cool thing I was able to do and I’m excited about that.”
For now I’m just going to try to respond to “what’re you up to?” with “lots of stuff, actually!” and once all my friends die from shock, then hopefully I can move on and stop calling things NBD that are, in fact, BDs. 
