I want to be everything all at once, that I end up doing nothing.
My own brain works against me. Every. Single. Day.
I’ve always been afraid of not being “good enough”, and just failure in general. When I was a kid, I was the version of myself I wish I could be right now. Moving from one hobby to another, exploring everything from reading to music to singing to performing to writing to learning 3 languages all at once. All things that I enjoyed doing. Alongside that, I was a really good student. I wouldn’t say I’m academically and naturally gifted, but I love(d) to read, so I had no problem studying hard to get the results I wanted. The problem was that nothing was good enough for me. A passable rather than a high grade disappointed me so much more back then than it does now. This voice saying “you’re not good enough” was always there.
The only difference is that now, that voice is merely an echo in my head that does more damage than good. That voice has stopped motivating me, it has stopped encouraging me to be better for the things that matter to me, the choices I have made. I do not feel alive anymore, merely because I’m not living it. I’m 21, studying abroad, and it’s almost humiliating that I’m on my third year of university, with a delayed graduation, no healthy routine whatsoever for my day-to-day life. I’ve stopped caring about the progress as much as I care about the results, which if anything, gives me worse results than I expected.
I frequently look back on my 15 year old self and wish she could’ve chilled a little, took more time to appreciate herself for what she could do at such an age, and enjoy how easy it was. Now I feel like when I need her the most, she’s out of reach. I feel overwhelmed trying to craft a new, adult productive version of me. I think that’s because I’m constantly searching for a purpose, something intangible to define me. I feel disconnected, intangible myself. Nowadays I’m nothing more than my thoughts. This way, happiness feels more like a condition, rather than a choice. And I don’t know how to achieve the latter. I know I want happiness, I just don’t know who I am anymore, and who I want to be. But I don’t know how to be happy, without a purpose, or two or 3. I want to be everything, like I was at 15, and I’m struggling to accept the fact that I can’t do that. I hate prioritising the things I need to do, but I also hate abandoning my passions that foster creativity.
Sometimes I feel like my only passion is being nostalgic, thinking about the past, and how things were better in the past. And how although I had it great, I didn’t appreciate things as much as I did them. Now that my life’s got more demanding academically, I cannot bring myself to go to class or do anything. I can’t even do things that bring me enjoyment, unless it’s with company.
Most importantly, I don’t know how to balance anything. So I end up doing nothing. And then I’m merely existing.