I spent the first few years of my professional life trying to master the art of pretending.

School was hard, but at least there was a structure to it. You did your assignments. You took your tests. You’d get your grades, and the grades would tell you how well you were doing.

Working at a startup was another matter entirely. I felt the raw energy as soon as I stepped into the room on my first day. Nobody looked up from what they were doing. A mad intensity thrummed through the office. Around messy clusters of desks, engineers spun products with the clickety-clack of firing keys, their silhouettes brimming with confidence.

I knew so little then, but I knew this: I wanted to become a part of that energy. And so I began to pretend. I started to mold myself into a puzzle piece that would plug into the environment. I tried, oh, how I tried—how ridiculously, desperately, pathetically I tried.

How I’d nod and laugh along as the engineers made fun of other engineers’ code, all the while feeling my stomach twist because I knew with an unwavering certainty that if I weren’t present, that same group would be making fun of my code.

How I’d roll into work at noon and stay at the office until 7am so I could claim to be a part of the night crew.

How I’d argue something I didn’t feel that strongly about, like Macs versus PCs, just so I’d have something to vehemently defend like the others.

How I’d watch sports I didn’t have a clue about, and swig vodka my body had no tolerance for, and not get offended when offensive things were said, all because I wanted to belong.

How I watched like a hawk and listened like a bat to what was going on around me—which sites were worth following, which typefaces were cool, which frameworks were the bomb—so that I could inhale and parrot back some of the casual confidence of my peers.

I could never have admitted any of this then, not even to myself. I would have shriveled up into a ball of mortification and died on the spot if my friends and colleagues knew. You don the disguise long enough, and you can’t even recognize that you are acting. That you are behaving inauthentically, from a place of fear and insecurity. That you can’t figure out how to reconcile the real you with the pretend you.

Because nothing is more important than not being found out as a fraud.