To this day, I have yet to feel as nervous as I did during the tennis tournaments I played as a kid. Weekend after weekend, I’d helplessly look up at my mom sitting worlds away on the other side of the observation glass.
My nerves didn’t come from the stakes of the tournament. Shockingly, no one actually cared if I won the girls’ 10-and-under tournament in Rockford, Illinois. Rather, the nerves came from the pressure I felt being alone on the court. Tennis is lonely: there's no one to high five after a good shot and no one to console you after a double fault. This is why I begged my mom to let me try out for middle school volleyball.
This is also why I played my matches tentatively, on edge. My confidence wavered depending on my opponent. As the girls I played got older, bigger, louder, stronger, I became increasingly unsure of my abilities.
Above all else, the most dreaded parts of my tennis career were the moments when girls would question my line calls. In youth tennis, balls that land close to the boundaries become a matter of your word against hers, without the possibility of an overrule from a referee or instant replay. And with my shaky nerves, I was easily taken advantage of.
“Are you sure that was out?” My opponent would yell as she loomed closer to my side of the court. I became grateful for the net that was a boundary no one could cross. I was sure it was out. That’s why I made the call. But for some reason, every time this question arose, my face burned hot with embarrassment as I stumbled for the words to respond. All it took was a single question to doubt both the line call and my entire integrity.
Now, a decade later, I am still being asked, “Are you sure?” But instead of regarding close line calls, it’s about my reactions, my decisions, my feelings. Why, 10 years later, am I still not sure? How have I always been so quick to trust everyone except myself?
In a world with access to millions of results from a single Google search, we’ve become professional answer-finders. I don’t think there is any sort of determination that parallels a college student looking for the homework on Chegg.
But our search has extended far beyond school. We use the internet to ask some of the most personal questions we can think of, desperately hoping that someone, somewhere will grant us with the magical answer we are so convinced we are missing. After exhaustive Google searches inevitably fail us, we desperately look to parents, friends, or just anyone who will tell us what is right. Someone has to know.
I spend a lot of time searching, wondering, doubting. In my most intimate relationships, I push away my anxiety, anger, fear. Too ashamed to ever voice my feelings to a significant other, I text my best friend instead. Am I overreacting?
As as I started spending more time in Ross as a sophomore, it was impossible to ignore the infinite line of students in suits outside the Morgan Stanley presentation. Should I be going into finance?
After finally building boundaries to protect myself from people who have already hurt me more than enough, they retaliate with angry text messages. Is this my fault?
These are questions that have kept me up at night. It's only now, as I write them out, that I realize someone did, in fact, know the answers I tossed and turned over. And that person was me. I know I felt angry, I know I hate finance, and I know they hurt me first.
Why do we ask questions we already know?
Sometimes, things are real and true simply because we deem them to be so. Feelings and decisions are ours to hold onto, and they exist without justification. There's no instant replay, there’s no Quora search result, and there is most certainly no confirmation from the other side of the net. But this shouldn’t make you any less sure of something you already know.
This is not to say I know everything. Don't get me wrong, I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing or where I’m going next. But we need to stop searching for validation everywhere else and start learning how to be the confirmation we so desperately think we need.
Little did I know that during every grueling tennis match, the real battle was within myself. Next time I’m asked if I am sure, I will look no farther than within. Win or lose, I’m going to trust myself first. And yes, I’m absolutely positive this time.