Decision Diary: Choosing to Write While Feeling Insignificant
A quiet rebellion against the belief that I don’t matter.
For most of my life, the word through which I filtered everything was insignificant.
I felt it as a child when I was overlooked and forgotten.
I felt it as a young woman when comparison filled my mind with evidence that everyone else was prettier, more talented, and more worthy of attention.
Each comparison gave me something new to feel smaller about—until the thought eventually surfaced:
What’s the use of doing anything at all?
And over time, insignificance taught me to disappear before anyone else could make me feel invisible.
I notice its familiar presence when people talk around me instead of to me at work.
Or when my posts or notes are met with silence.
My body experiences it as confirmation.
See? You don’t matter.
Today, that old friend showed up again.
She wasn’t dramatic.
She was subtle and persuasive:
Maybe writing on Substack isn’t for you.
You don’t have the “it” factor to make it.
You should probably quit.
In defiance of Insignificance’s input, I made a different decision today.
I choose to keep writing.
Not because the pain went away.
Not because I suddenly feel confident or visible.
But because I tallied up the cost of not writing.
It’s a price I am not willing to pay.
Quitting wouldn’t be self-protection.
It would be self-sabotage.
Quitting wouldn’t be humility.
It would be denying my destiny—and the identity I know is inevitable.
Believing I was insignificant once helped me make sense of being forgotten.
Making myself small once felt safer than hoping to be acknowledged.
But I no longer want to live from a script written by a history of neglect.
So this is my documented declaration:
I will not abandon myself just because rooms get quiet.
I will continue to write even when insignificance tries to chime in.
I will keep leaving evidence of my voice, even when it isn’t echoed back.
I will not doubt my brilliance simply because someone hasn’t seen the light yet.
This isn’t about visibility right now.
It’s about continuity.
It’s about conscious choice
It’s about reclaiming authorship over my own life.
Today, I chose to stay.
What 46-Year-Old Me Wants to Say to the Younger Me
You were never insignificant.
You just weren’t mirrored properly.
There was nothing missing in you—no lack of talent, beauty, or presence.
What was missing was consistent reflection. You learned to shrink not because you were small, but because no one taught you how to take up space safely.
I see now how much you carried in silence.
How often you questioned the point of trying.
How early you learned to make yourself easy to overlook.
You didn’t imagine that pain.
And you didn’t fail because of it.
I’m still here because you didn’t disappear completely.
Every time you wanted to give up but didn’t, you left something for me to build on.
I’m writing now so you don’t have to keep wondering if you mattered.
You did. You do. And I’ve got you from here.
Reflection (optional, no pressure)
If you’re reading this and recognizing yourself in any part of it, you don’t have to explain or respond.
Just notice this:
Where in your life are you choosing to stay instead of shrink?
That’s enough for today.