leap of faith
photo by sophie mcleod
leap of faith
second year claire d’agostino
Have you ever been getting ready to hang out with a friend when you get that fateful text?
omg so sorry i actually can’t make it today :(
They ruined your day so casually, as if you hadn’t spent an hour doing your makeup and styling your hair. Maybe you had picked out your outfit the night before because you didn’t want to stress about it and knew you wanted to take cute pictures. You were looking forward to these plans for weeks—even if your “plans” were as simple as getting coffee and going thrifting.
I’ll be honest, I have been ghosted a few times in my life. The feeling of dejection that you experience cuts deep and brings up feelings of worthlessness and anxiety.
Why do we find ourselves putting our faith in things that we know will let us down?
Whether it be some far off influencer whose old tweets resurface exposing them as a terrible person or a tinder match who was a no-show for the second date. Even when we put our faith in those closest to us, we still find ourselves disappointed by the temporality of them.
So why not have faith in yourself?
The word “faith” is almost automatically associated with religion in our minds, but as defined by the dictionary, faith is simply “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” When we take a leap of faith, we are deciding to put our complete trust in something despite all the unknowns that come with it. Take the most literal example of a leap of faith: skydiving. When you go skydiving, you’re not only taking a physical leap out of the plane, but you are putting your trust in the instructors who taught you the correct way to jump, the pilot flying the plane to steer you in the correct direction, and the parachute that is preventing you from plummeting to your death.
On a smaller scale, we are forced to put our faith in ourselves every day. Whether it be a job interview for a position you feel like you aren’t qualified for or even just trusting yourself to wake up on time in the morning, we all require a certain level of faith in ourselves.
When we experience rejection, we’re more inclined to stay in the same place or go backwards from where we began. We will never leave our comfort zone in pursuit of something that actually contributes to our growth if we continue to live in fear of what could happen.
Believing in yourself affects everything you do: your choices, your self perception, your whole life. We spend too much time looking back on the past and using it to determine our future. We find ourselves comparing our worth to that of those around us. These things all slowly cause us to lose faith in ourselves.
In order to escape this worry-inducing cycle, our mindset has to change. Some say to fake it until you start to believe it, and if that works for you, do it. But I think that the key to changing the way we think is to be honest with ourselves: we have to embrace the place we are in. And if you truly want to start believing in yourself, the hardest part is beginning.
So the next time that your friend or date cancels on you, don’t let their actions affect your outlook. Instead, take yourself out on a date and embrace the time you get to spend with yourself (& no it’s not weird to eat at a restaurant alone!).
Should you take a leap of faith?
You’ll never know unless you try.