I suck, therefore I am (sucknito ergo sum)

As I reel between sweet victory with the occasional stunning upset and abysmal often embarrassing defeat I can no longer deny that I too often suck at this game. I believe I even know the principal reasons for my sorry state which is inattentiveness and impatience.  Lack of skill comes in later.  Sometimes I barely look at the board before starting to move the pieces about in a frantic exercise in bewilderment only to find myself unsurprisingly checkmated.  I admit this as hopefully the first step toward in my recovery.  I ask you to bear witness. 

Admitting that you have a problem is the first step.   Next is believing in a higher power ... I'd go with this guy.

It would me "sugero ergo sum" in this case :P

I sometimes feel the same. In fact, I'm reasonably sure really a lot of players encounter this phenomenon. It does seem to get less bad after a good while of playing, though. As long as you never completely give up, you can only improve! :3

thank you for the Latin, and the thought.  

Hmmmm, he seems inherently trustworthy, what with the slouching posture (non-threatening) and 19th Century specs (smart and caring), but I can't place him - clues?, or just a name?

Steinitz

Wilhelm Steinitz. Wrote a lot of "epiphany inducing things" about chess, try these:

http://exeterchessclub.org.uk/content/theory-steinitz

thanks, I will,

Such a dignified and powerful beard.

Keep coming back. It works if you work it!

I feel you are a perfectionist at what ever you do, like me so I am often told. Always felt this was a complement!  Then one day this beauteous lady said to me, being a perfectionist is not always good because when doing your thing and it is not going as well as you want it to be, you come to a complete stall, and progress stops and you are at anger with yourself!  I lost a promotion because of that 

  But I learned a lesson do not beat yourself if it does not come out perfect every time!! We are only humans........

I sympathize completely.  During EVERY SINGLE game I have ever played, I freeze up at multiple points and think "Oh, God--I don't see what to do!  ALL the moves look kind of okay.  And probably all of them are blunders, blunders, BLUNDERS!"  AAAAAAAAAH!"

A lot of it is perfectionism, as noted above: there must be A SINGLE perfect move out there, and if you don't choose it, the universe will laugh at you!  Your higher power (see above) will shove a Monopoly board into your hands and resign!  Your final move will become a SIG on these forums!

Breathe deeply.  Keep playing.  Always LOVE playing first of all, and love winning second of all.  That way, it's never time wasted.  And with non-wasted time comes, at long last, a reasonable share of skill.  We're not all at that point yet (I'm not).  But we can be, and so can you.

Personally, I revel in being terrible. It's like a war-within-a-war everytime I make a move. Since I'm not only trying to (laughably) find a good move, I'm also fighting the constant urge to hang a piece or get into a fantastically bad position!

At least it provides for a lot of entertainment when I go to click the submit button and suddenly doubt my analysis.

It doesn't make sense to interpret a lost chess game as a reminder of one's mortality or as a sign of intellectual weakness. People who judge themselves by their ability to play chess take the game too seriously. If you are to judge yourself, do so on basis of more important criteria, i.e. how you relate to other people, what have you done to change the world for the better, etc. The way one moves wooden or plastic pieces on a checquered board is unimportant in the larger scheme of things.

While you can talk about "the bigger picture" or playing for the pure love of the game,  let's fess up and admit  that it does (or has) feel (felt) good when you realize that within a pool of people, your competency in a hobby (chess) that others may play is considerably superior.

Doesn't matter where you are on the ladder; The 1100-rated tourney player can whoop his office colleagues + family + friends and feels good about it, the 2000+ rated expert KNOWs he is in the top 99.5+% percentile of chess players on the planet.