I’m taking a beat to record a nice moment that happened to me today.

I returned to work after taking a sick day and more than one person took the time to reach out to me privately and directly wish me a speedy recovery.

I wasn’t seriously ill (a very minor case of covid), but for some reason this really touched me today.

I feel like such a burden at work.

• I’m not quite smart enough to solve the really challenging problems.
• My code isn’t so approachable that I imagine its an overt joy to work in codebases I’ve got overwhelming influence in.
• I never have just the right answer as fast as I want to give it to people.
• Oftentimes, I feel like I’m nagging people with imaginary problems that don’t represent real threats worth expending their effort to mitigate.

For some reason, knowing people wanted to take 5 minutes out of their day to just wish a bit of good will really meant something.

Maybe, they don’t secretly hate me.

Maybe, they in fact like me.

Maybe, in all the imaginary scenarios I re-tread at my worst moments where I’m fired for gross incompetence or have to shamefully resign because I can’t handle the pressure, the imaginary-verse versions of my coworkers would miss me. Maybe they’d think their place at work would be worse off without me.

I really shouldn’t pin my self-confidence or self-respect on the perceived opinions of others.

But, there are still a lot of days where I have to put in extra effort to like myself. And maybe it’s nice to think that the days where I don’t do a good job of that others are still liking me just fine.

Anyway, it was a nice morning. I’m a blessed man.