Most of the time, I am very sure of who I am. Admittedly, I'm not always very confident in myself, but I have gotten pretty good at "faking it until I make it." By this, I mean that if I pretend as though I am very confident, I start to actually become that way. In all actuality, I have become fairly confident. But there are still some days when I do not feel quite myself. I'm here to talk about how that feels. It's when I leave my home in a new outfit and I put extra effort into my hair. I feel great about myself all day, until I come home and look in the mirror only to see what is wrong. I parted my hair too far to the side. Were the bags under my eyes this dark all day? Maybe this sweater didn't look very nice with these jeans. I started the day feeling beautiful, and I went to bed feeling like a stranger to my own body. It is when I worked very hard on a presentation to give in class, and become nervous once I stood in front of the room. I forgot some of the things that I wanted to say, and I am sure that my shaky knees were very noticeable. I don't know if it was just me, but it sounded as though people didn't clap as much as they did for the other presentation. It is when I get a grade slightly lower than what I was hoping for, and I feel like the feeling of failure is setting out the map for the rest of my life. I didn't ace the biology exam, so does that mean that I am going to fail the class, lower my gpa, that I will never get the job that I am working hard for? Of course not. Even though I know that I am doing my best, that people like me, and I like myself too, there are still times when I forget those things and do not feel like myself at all. The best thing that I can possibly do for myself at these times is to remember that the way that I feel is self created. I must see the world around me in a different way. remember the other presentations given before mine. I know that my mind wandered quite a bit during the presentations, and use introspection to assume others did the same. No matter how the different presentations went, everybody received the same level of polite applause. I know that I am letting the nervous feeling from standing in front of a group of people get to my head, and that I am only paranoid that my presentation went poorly. This is just one example of a time where I try to use introspection and realistic thinking to calm my nerves. In order to be happy and comfortable with myself and my life in the way that I normally am, I must remind myself that in situations where I feel insecure and nervous I am not seeing things for what they truly are.