ive always thought I had come to terms with (or overcome, whatever) impostor syndrome, but im pretty sure I was wrong.

something about being at gdq this week made me realize that whenever I started to get good at something I bailed and pointed my interests elsewhere.

i was in enhanced learning classes until grade 8, then I bailed on IB program and went to art school.

I got a fine diploma in fine arts when I graduated, and then did nothing with it.

i had some kind of natural talent for learning foreign languages and have nothing to show for it besides 10-year rusty spanish and french, and long hiatuses on japanese

I got unconditional acceptance into the most prestigious program at a top 10 worldwide engineering school and flunked out in the first year.

I switched to another program and showed a lot of potential in OR but gave up when I couldnt find an internship. I didn't look very hard.

I switched to HCI and left the field after my second job. I didnt really do shit all in university to network and let most of my talent go to waste.

I'm a dev now because it's been my hobby since I was 13, but I have no formal education in the field and don't devote as much time as I should to improving at it. when ppl ask me about my work I dont really say much about it and some of my stuff being open source makes me anxious

when I was 14 I was getting really good at ddr, really fast, in about a month's span I went from  playing for the first time to passing 7s/8s and then quit forever when I was doing 9s. i never gave myself the opportunity to get as good as I wanted to be even tho I was almost there.

i quit competitive smash as soon as I was ranked in my region. i never gave myself the opportunity to get as good as I wanted to be.

i stopped running smrpg any% a year ago, even though I know I have the potential to be a top runner. im still top 10 and I dont feel like my pb reflects my skill level, but once again, i never gave myself the opportunity to get as good as I wanted to be even tho I was almost there.

I met my goal of top 300 in SMK and stopped. why did I do that? I know I can go further.

maybe im just afraid of letting myself get in a position where im easier to expose/take down? i dont let myself thrive and just retreat as soon as I show some serious potential for anything. I feel like wasted talent.

idk why im posting this really. I dont have an answer for myself and I guarantee nobody reading this does either. but this week I won a ssb64 tournament and got 3rd in a brawl tournament after 2 years of retirement, got two huge PBs on a smk course I thought I plateau'd on, and got like 80% of my ddr skill back. ive also been making much better plays in dr mario, a game I thought I hit a brick wall in. all of that felt great. and yet im probably not gonna pursue any of it because I don't let myself succeed