If you frequently watch the YouTube channel Vlogbrothers, you may have seen a new face this week. The Vlogbrothers channel is the channel of author John Green and his brother Hank Green in which they “communicate” with each other through frequent videos. Hank has recently welcomed a new baby into his family and is on paternity leave from his shared YouTube channel. The brothers welcomed the social media and YouTube personality Nathan Zed onto their channel to fill in while Hank is fulfilling his fatherly duties.
Zed’s first video on the Vlogbrothers channel is titled You’re Not Good Enough. It is a message to those who don’t feel good enough, including himself. It is a reminder that although he has a large following on Twitter, Instagram, etc., he still feels as if he isn’t good enough for most things. He goes through this every day just like the rest of us.
I appreciate Zed’s video tremendously. It is refreshing and comforting to know that someone I see as having it all figured out, still goes through very human struggles every day.
“Even with the things I think I am good at, I always feel like I’m not good enough.” I cannot tell you how relevant this is to me. Just like him with school, friendships, and video making, throughout everything I do on a daily basis, I feel as if I am not good enough.
As a dancer, I go through this constantly. After leaving a situation in which I was told I wasn’t good enough, I have picked that up myself and have begun to tell myself the same thing. The internal struggle I go through makes the art I once enjoyed a lot more difficult to enjoy. I can’t help but reprimand myself in practice because I am used to someone doing that for me. While I am no longer in an unhealthy environment in which I am told I am not and will never be good enough, it will always haunt me as long as I am dancing.
As a writer, I go through this constantly. I am not the best writer in my Odyssey community, or in my group of friends, or in my English class, and that is okay. It is okay that I am not the best, but it is not okay that I feel as if I am not good enough. I forget to remind myself that I wouldn’t be where I am at if I wasn’t good enough. I would not have the opportunities I am given if I wasn’t a good enough writer.
I am learning to accept the idea that in order to grow I have to face the fact that I will never be the best. I have always struggled with this and I will probably always struggle with it, but I am working toward accepting myself at the level I am at. Yes, I have been told that I am not good enough and I have told myself that I am not good enough, but that isn’t true. I am good enough and so are you.
Nathan Zed’s video is a beautiful reminder that in order to improve, one must get past the fear of not being good enough. You have to become comfortable with not being the most qualified person in the room. He is doing things he loves without worrying about how “good” he is at them. And remember, all of the things that you’re good at, and maybe not so good at, make you who you are.
To further prove the point, take the burrito metaphor for example. “See, your life is like rolling a burrito. You’ve got all these things you’re good at. You’ve got your rice, you got your beans, you got the chicken, the lettuce, the sour cream, the guac (if the money right). Eating them separately, you might not have the best chicken in the world or the greatest sour cream you’ve ever tasted. You might not be incredible at this, you might not be amazing at that, but roll them all together to make you, and you’ve got a pretty good burrito…person.”
So thank you Nathan, for the video, and for somehow finding a way to relate life to rolling a burrito.
