Editor's note: This was originally sent out in the newsletter on 09/08/18

I recently (an hour ago) watched the Mr. Rogers documentary; Won’t You Be My Neighbor. I have many takeaways from this that I am sure will come up in different places in the future, but today I am going to talk about doubting yourself.

I often have a lot of self-doubts, I have doubt every time I go to send out this newsletter, I have doubts with how I raise my kids, I have doubts if I am doing my best with life. I find it helps a lot to know that really everyone has self-doubt, people that were the best in their field had doubt. As it turns out, Mr. Rogers had a lot of self-doubts. He wondered if he was able to pull off the job that he was doing and if he was good enough to keep going. To me this seems crazy, especially looking back at the influence he had on countless people. To know that someone like this doubted themselves makes me feel better. It makes me feel like I am not the only one with these thoughts, outside of that fact that he was orders of magnitude more important to the world.

I feel like Marcus Aurelius dealt with this as well, his *Meditations* were his journal, he never meant for them to be published in any way. The whole book is him trying to figure out how to deal with life and trying to do the right thing. He struggled with how to act and even with not wanting to get up to deal with the day.

Knowing people you look up to as great men struggled in many of the same ways you do is helpful. I also think that having the self-doubt and questioning if you are doing well enough at least means your trying. I think there are probably many people who never think about these things and are just floating by in life without feeling they have a choice or need to change. Maybe self-doubt isn’t always bad.

Links

• I think I could watch people break things apart and tell me how they are made all day. In the latest Nerdwriter video he does this with Michael Jackson, it's good stuff.
• Really in that same vein, you could watch all these Earworm videos by Vox.

The change of schedule from no school to school can hit you pretty fast, suddenly there is a lot more running of the kids to this and that, but it also adds a little bit more structure to everything. It takes a few weeks to get used to again, but sometimes the structure is nice. Also, you should totally check out the Mr. Rogers documentary if you get the chance, it's good.

Thanks for reading,
Mike

P.S. You know, with the holiday week everything is a bit later this week right?