we are held back by the crippling thought

that people like us could not possibly triumph

given what we know of ourselves

how reliably: stupid, anxious, gauche, crude, vulgar and dull

we really are.

we live the possibility of succes, to others

because we do not seem to ourselves

to be anything like the sort of people we see lauded around us

faced with responsibility or prestige, we quickly become convinced

that we are simply: impostors

like an actor, in the role of a pilot

wearing a uniform, and making sunny cabin announcements

while utterly incapable, of even starting the engines

it can feel easier, simply not to try

the root cores of the impostor syndrome

is a hugely unhelpful picture of what other people are really like

we feel like impostors, not because we are uniquely flawed

but because we fail to imagine how deeply flawed

everyone else must necessarily, also be

beneath the more or less, polished surface.

the impostor syndrome has its roots far back in childhood

specifically, in the powerful sense children have that their parents, are really very different from them

to a four year old, it's incomprehensible that their mother was once their age

and unable to drive a car, tell the plumber what to do

decide other people's bedtimes and go on planes with colleagues

the gulf in status appears absolute and unbreachable

the child's passionate loves

pouncing on the sofa, pingu, toblerone

have nothing to do with those of adults

who like to sit at a table, talking for hours

when they could be running about outside

and drink beer, which tastes of rusty metal

we start out in life with a very strong impression

that other people, especially competent and admirable other people

are really not like us, at all

this childhood experience

dovetails with a basic feature of the human condition:

we know ourselves from the inside

but we know others only from the outside

so we're constantly aware of all our anxieties, doubts and idiocies

yet all we know of others

is what they happen to do and tell us

which is a far narrower and more edited source of information.

We're often left to conclude

that we are isolated at the more freakish and revolting end of human nature

far from it

we're just failing to imagine

that others are, of course, every bit as disturbed as we are

without knowing exactly what it is

that troubles or racks another, outwardly very impressive person

we can be sure that it will be something.

We might not know exactly what they regret

but there will be agonizing feelings of some kind

we won't be able to say exactly

what kind of unusual, sexual kink obsesses them?

but there will be one

and we can know this because vulnerabilities and compulsions

cannot be curses that have just ascended upon us uniquely

they are universal features of human mental equipment

the solution to the impostor syndrome

lies in making a crucial leap of faith:

the leap that others' minds must work

in basically much the same way as ours do

everyone must be as anxious, uncertain and wayward as we are

it's a leap of faith because we just have to accept

that the majority of what we feel and are

especially the more shameful, unmentionable sides

will have a corollary in each and every one of us

one of the tasks that works of art should ideally accomplish

is to take us more reliably into the minds of people we're intimidated by

in order to show us the more average, muddled and fretful experiences that they have

that way, we would be helped to understand

that we're not barred by our vulnerabilities from doing what they do

that's what the philosopher Montaigne

writing in the 16th century

was attempting to do

when he playfully informed his readers in plain French that

"kings and philosophers shit and so do ladies!"

Montaigne's point is that for all the evidence that exists about this shitting

we might not guess that these people ever had to squat on a toilet

we never see distinguished types doing this

while of course we are immensely well informed

about our own digestive activities

and therefore we build up a sense

that because we have crude and sometimes rather desperate bowels

we can't be philosophers, kings or ladies

and that if we set ourselves up in these roles

we would just be impostors

Montaigne's example is a neat one

because despite the lack of evidence

we know that these exalted people

must of course excrete in exactly the same way we do

So, with Montaigne's guidance

we're invited to take on a saner sense of what

grand, powerful and beautiful people are really like

but the real target isn't just an under confidence about bodily functions

this point extends into the psychological arena too

Montaigne might also have said that kings, philosophers and ladies

are wracked by self-doubt and feelings of inadequacy

sometimes bump into doors

and have weird, lustful thoughts about members of their own families

Furthermore, instead of considering only the big figures of 16th century France

we could update this example

and refer to CEOs, corporate lawyers, news presenters and successful start-up entrepreneurs

they too, can't cope, feel they might buckle under pressure

and look back on certain decisions with shame and regret

No less than shitting, such feelings are not what separates us from them

our inner frailties don't cut us off from doing what they do

If we were in their roles, we'd not be impostors

we'd simply be normal

Making a leap of faith around what other people are really like

helps us to humanize the world

it means that whenever we encounter a stranger

we're not really encountering a stranger

we're in fact encountering someone

who is, in spite of the surface evidence to the contrary

in basic ways, very much like us

and therefore, nothing fundamental stands between us

and the possibility of responsibility, success and fulfillment.