On inadequacy

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?" -Marianne Williamson

I often came across this quote as I did the usual "quotes by famous people" search for my school assignments, or otherwise. Very often, this quote is wrongly attributed to Nelson Mandela. However, it is actually a paragraph from the book 'Return to Love' by the author Marianne Williamson. The fact that it was attributed to the famous and universally respected Nelson Mandela, is probably the reason why this seemingly contradictory quote became so popular, but that is a digression from the main purpose of my piece.


"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure."

'What on earth could this possibly mean?' I thought as I read this quote for the first time. Looking at my own life and the lives of others, I came to notice that the fear of inadequacy is something that so many people struggle with, whether or not they have the courage to admit it to themselves. People are scared of not being smart, pretty or witty enough. They are terrified of not ending up successful or loved because of some form of inadequacy that they might feel like they have. How could it be possible that we actually aren't terrified of inadequacy, but of it's absolute opposite, immeasurable power?

I found the answer to this paradoxical question in what could seem like a pretty irrelevant situation; while I was revising for physics. Although I don't remember the exact problem, there was this specific type of problem in two-three dimensional motion that I seemed to never get my head around. I strongly believed that I will never be capable of getting the grade that I want because how much I suck at identifying the variables correctly and working everything out. However, one time, I decided to give this problem- related to the specific topic, which was marked as 'challenging' in the book a shot. To my surprise, I managed to get the correct answer. At this moment, I experienced a strange feeling. I wasn't happy that I got the right answer, as much as I was troubled. I wondered, if I'm able to get the right answer, no matter how difficult the question is if I try hard enough, does this mean that every single time, in every single situation in which I got it wrong, I simply wasn't giving it my all?

This example doesn't only apply to the silly physics question, it applies to everything, really. Our deepest fear is that we are capable of much more than anyone could ever imagine. We are terrified of our power, what it could do and how we might not ever fully harness it during our lifetimes. On the outside, it might appear as if humans have a fear of inadequacy, when the reality is that humans aren't scared of being inadequate, they're scared of leading inadequate lives.