Believing in Yourself

[apolliana]

Kestra is about to run her first marathon. Kestra has never run a marathon before-it is something she wants to try. The night before, she gets cold feet, wondering if she will be able to finish it. Kestra’s friend tells her to believe in herself. Kestra summons this belief and shows up the next day to run

Comments

[nightspore]

I think there's a sense in which believing in yourself might put the self you believe in under an obligation not to betray the believing self. Since they're the same self, the obligation was not one that the former never accepted; when the believing self believed in the self believed in the self believed in thereby became responsible to the believing self to do as much as it possibly could not to disappoint that belief. (That's my intuition, based on the self-loathing I might feel if I give up when I really, truly don't have to, even if not giving up is very hard.)