Fooling Everyone

Is anyone with me on this one?

Sometimes I feel like I’m totally fooling everyone.

I get this feeling when it comes to school, jobs… and sometimes even life and being a Christian.

Ok, do you have any idea what I mean yet? For example… when someone gives me a job (excluding my most recent job as a cashier which, as a side note, as of today I am finished) I think I’ve fooled them into thinking I can handle it. I felt this way when Knox gave me their camp director job a couple of years ago. I was COMPLETELY in charge of everything that happened at that camp. I was the official supervising grown-up.  I made all the big decisions. And a whole committee of people perceived me as someone who could handle that. So, I must have fooled them… right?

I felt the same way when I got hired to be a youth pastor.

And I VERY often feel that way about school… not so much in my undergrad but much more in grad school. I discovered that somewhere along the way someone decided that anyone who goes to grad school is “smart.” And then there are an abundance of expectations. This, I believe, is mostly true if you come from a family/social setting that is fairly far removed from formal education ( I’m pretty sure I will be the first person in the history my family to get a Masters degree). So I’ve come this far with my education with plans to keep going… but sometimes I feel like I’ve tricked people into believing that I’m smart… and maybe even that I’ve tricked myself into feeling like I’m smart (a feeling which fades quickly on the days I’m in my MA/PhD seminar classes). So I’ve tricked everyone. And then I come to a point like this in the semester where I feel COMPLETELY inadequate when it comes to being intelligent. School is hard… so maybe I’m not as smart as I thought I was… but I have to keep up appearances because now I’ve done this thing in my life (especially in my family) where I’m the “smart” one.

I had a conversation with Jay and Cath about this recently… it was mostly jokes but in a way it reflects some very real identities we have assumed:

Jay= the musical one (I think Jay tried to convince us that he was also the good-looking one).

Sara= the smart one (despite Jay’s beliefs… I’m the good-looking one.)

Cath= the fun/cool one (or something like that)

I believe that if you asked my parents about us their categorization would be similar to that. Now here’s the thing. There is no doubt that Jay really is quite musically gifted and that will never change. Also… Cath will always be the social genius… I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t love her… and that will never change. (Now, of course both Jay and Cath have a host of other wonderful qualities with which they could easily be identified.)

Here’s the problem… I’m the “smart” one. That’s my identity. But I don’t actually think that I’m any smarter than either of my brother or sister. The only difference is that I’m the crazy one who likes to come home at night and translate some OT Hebrew, or discover patterns in Hebrew discourse analysis. And, as a result, I fool people into thinking I’m the “smart” one.

So… am I alone in this? Is there anyone else who feels like they’re just fooling people?

Can you relate to this feeling on any level?