You study all night for your test, but the next morning you feel like you don’t know the material as well. Do you just doubt yourself, or is it intuition? Your friend begs you to go to this party with her, but you have a bad feeling about going. Your friend says you are too apprehensive around new people and you should loosen up but you just do not feel like going is a good idea. Is it your intuition or insecurities?
   We have all struggled with this battle some time in our lives. Is it intuition or are we just insecure? It is hard to be able to tell the difference between the two, but knowing the difference is important. Knowing when to either follow your intuition or let go of your insecurities could save you a lot of headaches in the future.
   So what is the difference? Merriam-webster.com defines insecurity as “uncertainty or anxiety about oneself; lack of confidence.” It describes intuition as “the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.” Two clearly different definitions, yet we confuse the two feelings so often. Why is this?
   It is the factor of the unknown. Both of these things are emotions a person is not able to completely explain. It makes it easy to mistake one emotion for the other.
   How can you tell the difference? It is not simple. Being able to see the difference depends mostly on your situation. Insecurity deals mostly with self. Are you lacking confidence within yourself? Is it just you that stands in your way? If the answer is yes, it could be that you are just insecure in the situation.
   If you do not feel that it is you but the feeling that something is wrong, or that something is right, will not go away it could be intuition. This nagging feeling only grows stronger the more you try to fight it. You cannot shake it. The more you try to forget, the more it will not let you. That is what intuition feels like.
   It will not always be black and white. The gray area is that feeling you have when you feel a little less confident in yourself but that nagging feeling is always there, too. Do not ever feel like it can only be one or the other. Intuition and insecurity can sometimes fall hand in hand. Intuition could tell you something is not worth your time and effort at the same time insecurity says you won’t succeed anyway.
   At the same time, intuition could lead to insecurity. Taylor Gang of Irokfashion.com said intuition can lead one to be insecure because if the nagging continues, a person could come to believe that it is because they are not good enough.
   Does this professor not like me? Maybe I am just not smart enough. Are my friends the right friends for me? Maybe I am just not a good friend to them or I am boring. The complexity of insecurity versus intuition does not end. It is a battle that many college students are going to face almost daily. It is completely up to you which one you let win.