I love working in theatre. It is so beautiful to bring a story to life and wrap an audience in a different world, but sometimes it’s hard. Sometimes I wonder if I belong backstage at all. There are people who are much better than me already out there, being stage managers. Who would want me instead of one of them? I still have so much to learn. I’ve hardly ever gotten a chance to work in a fully equipped theatre and fill out all the paperwork and rehearsal reports stage managers are usually in charge of. I have no idea what I am doing and I just made a mistake why am I here? Then I realized I was being absurdly arrogant.

You’d think self-deprecation would be more accurately matched with humility but, at least in this case, you’d be wrong. How often is someone the best in a field they are just getting into? Almost never, the people who excel immediately are rare. That’s why people freak out whenever a prodigy emerges, because it is outside the norm. What on earth makes you think it’ll just be magically different for you? Why would you suddenly rocket to the top of your field when so few others have? If you are not a prodigy (most people aren’t) then anything you decide to do will be difficult in the beginning. This is not to say that no one can be extraordinary, but that there should be no shame in being ordinary. So persevere through making silly, embarrassing mistakes and remember that they do not make you unfit to be where you are. You are learning, that takes time.

Even when you have been doing something for a long time, there will probably still be people who do it better than you do. Better writers, artists, technicians, directors, doctors, etc. Their extraordinary skill does not invalidate your work. You should never give up the work you love because someone else does it better. You don’t have to be the best artist that ever lived to be an artist, you don’t have to discover the cure to cancer to be a good scientist. Maybe your excellence lies in doing good in small ways that might not go down in history books but still change people’s lives, whether they know it or not.