Hi, I'm Sam,
I will only admit it this one time and never again because I know the story is about to change, I have always had a confusing anxiety towards designs. Any kind of design scares me because I feel it's too much power to have to create something from scratch from your mind and playing around with different tools and elements and decide every little detail about it to the extent that some playfully say, "every mistake in design is a style" which is true in a lot of cases. I've always blamed humility for not wanting to wield that power and people have naturally just expected me to be very good at designs so they either ask for my input in design tasks or just expect me to lead the conversation when it comes to designs. Whenever they come to me, I either give a half-assed response so they don't feel some type of way and also don't bother to come back to me or I send them to someone else because I already do not know what to contribute to the discussion or what to say that will feel and be right and to prevent people from even coming to me at all or expect anything reasonable from me, I simply say I am color blind. The fact that I don't know a lot of colors is not because I am actually color blind but because I simply do not care enough for it to know them or remember them.
Despite my endeavors to stay as far away as possible from design, somehow design finds it's way to me and there are still some aspects to design that I find thrilling and so satisfying. I have spent so much time and energy trying to avoid designs, and now I've finally realized that I've been forcing the wrong definition of it to myself and putting outward pressures and expectations on myself to see design and carry out design the exact way others do. I didn't understand it for myself, that the essence of design is creating something unique to you which does not necessarily need to have a duplicate. And there are things I found joy in which I didn't define as design but are designs. The fear reduced and almost gone after I decided to take it a step at a time while completely having the freedom to reduce or increase my strides in my walk towards design. I almost missed out on my divine design because I desperately needed other people's interpretation of design to become my exact definition of it. Everything everyone was saying about it somehow sounded the same to me but with different words that I struggled to realize that people were explaining what it was to them and the incessant need to feel among and have the same words plagued my journey to determine my design and not let my unique path and design strokes be mine and also add to the beauty of the design world, which is the different strokes and styles of designs coming together to form one big beautiful design world.
There have been subtle things about me that I considered flawed designs because they're are not as pronounced as I would like them to be or not as notable in me as they in someone else and as such in past years I've felt less special compared to people who have those things in higher quantity or have it more notable and it never occurred to me that the amount I have is enough for me to build on or use as is because that is the amount I need to be special in my own way. I'm glad I didn't waste time not just wondering why those things are subtle or wasted my time trying to find more of it instead of using the quantity I already have to shine brightly and differently. Things I've called flawed have been perfect, things I've considered mistakes are what makes me feel special now. I found appreciation for those things with growth, growth in size, in understanding and perspective and ideas. The intelligence to know the value of what i have and use what I already possess to do great things that will eventually spotlight that my whole life and experiences have been one great divine design even beyond my wildest imaginations.
I've learned to hit pause when everything seems fast paced and almost chaotic. The pause will help me to first of all breathe, feel centered to determine where I am, where I am coming from and where I want to go to. If I don't stop for a bit, no matter how long or short the pause might be, my body will take the pause for me but I am glad that I am someone that rests for work instead of resting from work. There is every chance that I will keep going only to realize that I have gone the long way down the wrong path and the journey to return will not only feel so far but daunting.