Some atheists or agnostics scorn meditation, but regular meditation helps me in many ways including being comfortable and relaxed.

I think meditating helps process all the emotional baggage we've built up.

I've suffered it all my life - that constant voice in my head that says "you're not good enough, all these other people are better than you and you shouldn't be here. One day, they'll find you out and everyone will laugh at you, and you'll be thrown out."

The human mind is an incredible thing, but it can be a right asshole too.

Very interesting! I've felt the same way, these comments are great. Why do we feel like actors in our own life?

I think that it is a good thing to always want to expand your accomplishments, sometimes that drive comes from a little insecurity and introspection. People with total confidence and belief that they are as good as they can get have problems with humility and often hold narcissist values.

I think I understand how you feel and it seems to get worse as I've gotten older. I am also an engineer and somedays are worse than others. Especially after I've made a mistake...I start questioning everything I do which brings project s to a halt until I can shake myself free enough to finish... bleck!!! I often think about leaving my career.

I think one approach is to realize, with few exceptions, most people are no more competent or qualified than yourself, but just don't understand that. I just now finished reading THE KNOWLEDGE ILLUSION, a book by two college professors that asserts people THINK they know more than they do, generally. That is due in great degree to the fact that people assume community knowledge is their knowledge, when they really know very little about a given topic, but know that the information is there and available, so they treat it as their own. You simply seem to be aware, like many of us, that you don't know everything.

Yep, can relate. I owe my limited successes to noone.
I have had some major wins and had some limited fame in my fields.
I don't like the spotlight, I tend to send others to make the speeches, collect the awards, and when the goal has been achieved, I walk away and look for something else.
I became an over achiever quite young, I think always trying to prove myself.
Between 21and 31 I had all my big wins, only minor ones since and not many.
It is hard to think back and try and remember the feeling of those successes.
I always felt I was cheating somehow, taking credit for other peoples work or ideas, and maybe I was.
None of what I achieved was my own original thought, I just made other peoples ideas work.

Certainly can relate. Grew up in EXTREME poverty and low social status...but I've always been academic. I have some very impressive accomplishments, but there were times when I felt like a complete phoney.
I guess it's because I went so far beyond the expections that were predicted for me that, somehow, I feel like this can't be possible...

I have enough of an ego to pull off the axiom "fake it till you make it". My field is photography, most recently aerial photography, and my first client had no idea I was learning as I went. The videos enthralled her, so that was good enough for me. Every day I come from from a shoot, thinking I missed this shot, I should have done such-and-such... I'm not near as good as so-and-so... then I look at my raw footage. Then I look at my edited video. Then I understand why my clients love my shit...

What you have (if I have this right) is a confidence issue. You're too self depricating. (sp?)

For me, and as an atheist, I find it easy to take responsibility for my failures as well as my successes. The promotion I got this week was allllll me baby. Alllll me. And it was with great satisfaction that I looked my old POS boss in the face and said into her eyes
"You know Boss. I'm so happy. Especially since I got the job 'on my own' . All on my own". She knew exactly what I was saying in that I was thanking her for not a god damn thing. All she did for the past year and a half was put up barriers in my career. But I was indeed smarter than her and got this promotion despite her efforts to hold me back. Yup yup. Good job AtheistLatina! In effing DEED!

I think this feeling is common, especially early in a career. I've had it, and to some degree still do. It's mitigated, though, by interacting with people in management positions who are complete morons, and then I realize that I know considerably more about my job than they do, and that I possess far better judgement than they do. I feel better about myself and my abilities then.