I’ve made an astounding discovery, word nerds: human beings are friendly creatures.
No, really! Throw a group of strangers together and they’ll (generally) make an effort to befriend each other. This is especially true if those people already have something in common, like an internship at the same company.
Still, I was more than a little nervous when I went in for my first day as an intern.
Logic told me that the other 5 interns were in the same boat. My family told me to just be myself and I’d make friends without even trying. But that little voice in my head kept whispering “What if…?”
I do not like that little voice.
That little voice tells me that people won’t like me. The little voice says that I’m not good enough, that I’ll be a disappointment. The little voice insists that I’m too weird, too introverted, too…well, I think you get the point by now.
So there’s little me with my little voice standing in a big room of strangers. But you know what I discovered?
Those strangers have little voices too.
And my little voice was wrong. Those strangers weren’t perfect. They weren’t scary. They weren’t out to get me. And they weren’t going to metaphorically clothesline me like an angry giraffe.
My little voice is still there. I’ve managed to silence it for now, but I know it will be back. But I’ll be ready for it. Because I now have 5 new friends who understand how I’m feeling and who will hopefully encourage me when I’m doubting myself.
How do you deal with your little voice?
Until next time, word nerds!
Kate G. Jameson 
Ughhh…yes. It is so hard to get out of my own head sometimes. I do like you said: just try to remind myself that people are just people and are probably just as scared as me. And that people aren’t paying nearly as much attention to me as I think they are so my little awkward mistakes are not as ginormous as I think they are.
Agreed. My imagination always seems to be worse than reality.