Out of My League but Not Out of My Mind

Like many other wonderful traits we have coded into our system, one happens to be the crippling sense of self-doubt that bursts out of nowhere whenever we are infatuated with someone. It's like a volcanic eruption of insecurities that we carefully hid all this time and ones that we didn't even know we had. As it keeps getting exponentially harder with every passing day to see past this Mount Vesuvius of self-loathing, our brains reluctantly raise the white flag and shrug off the admiration with four words, "Out of my league". 

Although our brains do a terrific job at giving up, the consequences are hardly that simple. When you give up on something or someone due to doubts you have about yourself, those doubts slowly become a reality to you. Every time you submit to the idea of not being good enough, you become less and less of the person that you actually are and start turning into the very reflection of yourself that you were remorseful of. This is where the problem lies. Every blow to your sense of self-worth leaves an impact on your personality that lingers with you on every aspect of life. Every opportunity you give up on becomes the ghost that will haunt you on your next brave endeavour.  

Rejection hurts, quite a lot. Giving up feels easier than pondering a 1000 possibilities, especially since in your head you fail in 994 of them. But that does not make giving up an acceptable notion. We can play it safe all we want and put a ceiling on our expectations, but that way we will never know the sheer joy of bursting through that arbitrary limit we set for ourselves. 

First step to getting over the thought that someone is out of your league is to find the reasons behind that conclusion. Every time you list a negative quality about yourself, you need to think about whether it's something you can work on or not. If it's a negative trait that can be fixed with effort then you should be thinking of working on it, not just for that person but for your own betterment. If there's something broken, trying to fix it is a much better choice than lamenting about how it is indeed broken. We're all self-conscious about our baggage, but the thing is, everyone has them. It's all about coming to terms with each other's, not belittling ourselves in our heads over the ones that we have. Accepting the fact that you're not perfect and neither is the person that you're infatuated with is essential to making a realistic approach.

Having confidence does not make one immune to rejection. There's always a possibility that you can just not be their type, and that's okay. But that does not mean you should ever sell yourself short by labeling yourself as substandard. Mentally setting yourself up for disappointment doesn't leave room for triumph. They're not out of your league, maybe you're just playing a different game.  

Nuren Iftekhar is your local stray cat in disguise; he interacts with people for food and hates bright light. He got Hufflepuff 3 times straight in Pottermore so no walking around that one. Send him obscure memes at n.iftekhar18@gmail.com