Quote Mania 1

I have mentioned this before, but I am a communications student. I chose that study because I'm quite into words, writing and, obviously, communicating. Although I wouldn't call myself a great communicator, I am interested in how others communicate.

Anyway, this whole blog happened because I like writing (and go, obviously). 
While I was thinking about content for this blog, I suddenly thought of a file that I have had on my laptop that I made a few years ago. It contains quotes and phrases that I think are interesting, either because they inspire me, motivate me or just because I liked the way they were written/said.

They come from all over the place.

Even though none of them were written with go in mind, some can easily be related to go. So I will try and connect these quotes about everyday life and motivation to go. Perhaps they can even be useful, but I doubt that. 
The quote for this week will be:

 'People are only what they think of themselves.'

The source is NANA (either the manga or the anime or both, I don't remember) by Yazawa Ai.




Now, I might have a bit of an inferiority complex. Whenever I play someone supposedly stronger than me, I will get super nervous. Not because I absolutely want to win (there are handicaps for that), but because I don't want to make a fool out of myself by making stupid mistakes.
I think this fear is quite reasonable, and not even bad, when playing a high handicap game. In a handicap game you will probably lose exactly because you made 'stupid' mistakes.
But when playing online, against a 5k with no komi, I basically have the same fear. I am not sure if anybody has the same thing (if you do, let me know!), but I also found a way to sort of counter it.
During the game I keep talking to myself (usually not aloud). This is something I always do, to prevent myself from blindly playing.
To this list of things of things I repeat, I have added something along the lines of: 'You're not much worse (or better) than him/her.' This helps me to keep calm during the game.

What I'm trying to get to with this, is that I think your mindset can largely influence your game, just like your mood can. If you keep thinking that you're awful and that you will blunder, it is more likely to happen than when you stay calm and collected.