I am a Christian (yes, dorky, even), husband to my beautiful wife & best friend of TEN years and father of three adorable children. In my spare time, I like to play guitar and coach little kids' baseball.
I use this website to log my thoughts, happenings & whatnot. Sometimes my posts are work or web-related & sometimes they are family-related or just random.
I produce creative design and code for a living at Visual Notion.
I know I've been gifted with abilities in the realm of logo design, graphic design, layout, web design, CSS, and Drupal. I recognize that part but, I've never fancied myself as awesome or truly great at it, by any means. It's an interesting dichotomy as I know the talent is there, but the vast majority of the time, I don't feel as though I'm truly good at it. (Come to think of it, I've always felt the same way about playing the guitar too, despite playing for seventeen years)
Anyway, I do make my living as a designer and developer (well, I don't even feel I can call myself that even if I do Drupal installs, custom configurations, complex theming and CSS work). It pays the bills and I like what I do, but I've always noticed that I have an inferiority complex about it. It's much more noticeable when I look at the work of others. Now, I know you can be brought low by comparing yourself to others if you're not careful, but I don't think that's always a bad thing. If nothing else it helps keep your ego in check.
I just don't understand why I've always felt this way, though. I can feel proud of a project and a job well done, but I don't typically think it's worthy of submitting it to design publications, gallery sites and the like. There's too many others that are much better at it, and I know this to be true.
I think it comes down to God getting the glory and me not feeling I can lay any claim to it. Not that I am saying I'm right up there with them, but I wonder if this is how Moses, David, Paul and so many others in the Bible felt about their gifts and talents.
Just to be clear, here: I'm not having a pity party about it or fishing for compliments. I'm just being open about my struggles with feelings of vulnerability, lack of confidence and self-doubt in the very things most would consider my strengths.
So, there you have it: I'm a grown man that is a designer and pseudo developer (and guitar player) that is pretty insecure about my abilities. I'm not sure what do to with that, other than admit it and do what this verse states:
"Only fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart. For consider what great things he has done for you." – 1 Samuel 12:24
