Originally, my mom wanted me to be Sophia. 

She loved the name. My mom even had a friend with a daughter named Sophia and it didn’t deter her. She asked for her permission to share it. The fact that it had no family meaning or that it was popular didn’t matter. Her heart was set on it and she was determined. 

She intended for all her kids to have names that “have the second letter O”. All my sibling’s names follow that pattern. Joel, Noah, Cody, and Jordan. She thought Sophia would be a wonderful addition to that list. 

Well—that didn’t work out. According to my mom, she must have blacked out or something when they named me. It ended up being not even remotely close to Sophia. Faith. Everything about the meaning, sound, and spelling differ from what was supposed to be my name. 

Another contributor to them naming me Faith was their love of George Micheal music. He  released a song in ‘87 with the famous lyric saying you “gotta have faith.” After having my rambunctious siblings, they definitely needed to have faith. 

Faith is hope and confidence in yourself or others. It is the way you know everything will be okay. The color red. The smell and feel after a storm has passed, tranquil. The way you feel knowing there are new beginnings ahead. It is characterized as the belief in something known or unknown.

Having faith in other people is easy. I consider myself very trusting, gullible even. Sometimes gullible to a fault if I’m being transparent. I often find myself believing people when they are actually joking or even purposely lying. Sarcasm goes over my head quite a bit. 

Having faith in yourself is hard. Being confident is difficult. I second guess my capabilities daily. It’s easy to do when everyone else seems to have it all figured out.

Second guessing and lacking faith led me to be an overthinker. I write to do lists like it’s my job: daily assignment calendar, study plans, nighty to do lists, alarms, and more. This is a positive thing until it causes stress… like it has for me.

Lessening the amount I compare and second guess would lighten my stress load. It takes up a lot of energy to overthink everything from decisions, everyday conversations, to school assignments. Less worrywart, more confidence. I need to have more faith. More hopefulness. More belief in myself.

Often we as humans compare ourselves to others and criticize our flaws. Although comparison is embedded in human nature, we can still try to have faith in ourselves regardless. We’ll make mistakes and slip up often, but trying is a good start.

My name gives me something to work towards. Being confident and maintaining a hopeful attitude is something that should be a goal rather than an absolute anyway. Not everyday will be filled with positivity and that’s ok. It’s important try as you can. Improve over time. 

I’m glad my name isn’t Sophia. George Micheal was right, “I gotta have faith.”