The Virtue of Insecurity

“When I wake up in the morning, I feel like any other insecure 24-year-old girl. Then I say, ‘Bitch, you get up and walk the walk today.’” ―Lady Gaga

One time I failed at something I’d worked at for a long time. I felt terrible and spent a week moping around, complaining about it. My friends tried to cheer me up, saying, “It’s okay, don’t worry about it. You didn’t need that.”

But that’s not what it felt like to me. I viewed that kind of thinking as rationalization—the thing you do when your a...