9Im so done w everything like there's no spark in my life
Hi everyone, I’m 18 and I genuinely don’t know what I’m doing with my life right now. Myquals I did my 10th boards and got 91%, and then in 12th I got 66%. My stream was PCM with Psychology and English. And I guess somewhere I blame myself for my 12th downfall because I wasn’t serious. There were also emotional ups and downs, distractions and all, but honestly I just wasn’t serious about life at that point. After that, I thought I wouldn’t do coding or tech because, to be honest, I never really tried coding properly. It just never called me that much, although I also know that I never really gave it a proper chance. My cousin suggested that I shouldn’t go for coding because it’s very hectic and that I should look into commerce-related fields instead. For CUET I had also studied a little Economics and GAT, so I thought maybe commerce/economics-related fields could be a good option. But even my CUET preparation wasn’t that good, and I don’t think I was serious about colleges and my future even then.
During the counselling process, I started realizing that this is actually my life and things don’t just magically work out. I got Mata Sundri College for B.Com Programme. I’m Sikh, so I guess because of the Sikh minority reservation I had this opportunity. At first I thought maybe I should go, but my parents started saying that it wasn’t worth sending me to Delhi and that I should understand our financial situation. They also felt that I wasn’t mature enough to move out. Since childhood I’ve heard comments about me being very innocent, that I don’t rebel, that I don’t demand things, that I’m like a cow and just accept whatever is given to me. Honestly, I find that extremely embarrassing because I take it as an insult. It feels like you’re saying I’m just okay with whatever happens to me. People do call me stubborn sometimes, but I’m not really rebellious. Sometimes I think it’s because I’m lazy, sometimes I get overwhelmed, and sometimes my brain literally shuts down. I can’t think of comebacks, I don’t know what to say, and I just lose it.
My parents also felt I wasn’t mature enough to manage moving out, and honestly I was scared too. Delhi already felt huge and isolated to me. I kept thinking how would I travel, how would I live alone, how would I manage everything, and there wasn’t even a guarantee that I would get a hostel. I would probably have to live in a PG, which felt even more unsafe to me. So somewhere I didn’t have enough belief in myself either. I didn’t think, “Okay, I’ll figure it out somehow.” I was scared that maybe I wouldn’t be able to manage. So eventually I didn’t rebel or fight for it and agreed to stay here and go to Dr. Harisingh Gour University, because my parents kept telling me that it’s a good university, it’s only three years, we’ll save money, and after that I can move out for my master’s or whatever I want to do. And at that point even I wasn’t clear about what I wanted, so I just accepted it.
But after that I started seeing other students’ stories and pictures of people living in Mumbai, Delhi, other cities, and some even going abroad, and I started comparing my life with theirs. I see people having hostel life, fests, societies, late-night conversations, people sitting together and singing and playing guitar, making friends from different places and just experiencing life. And here I am in a tier-3 city, going to be a day scholar, and I don’t even know if my university has proper societies or fests or what kind of college life I’m actually going to have. The FOMO has been hitting me really badly. I’ve seen people from my own school move out, and I’ve grown up hearing people talk about how they don’t want to stay in this university or how they want to leave this city no matter what. I’ve even seen Instagram reels saying “first step of self-love is leaving your hometown,” and somehow that hits me because I feel like I couldn’t even do that. There’s this sort of grudge people have towards this university and this city, and I’ve heard people say that there’s nothing here. Then I look at myself and think, why am I still here?
I also keep thinking about how there are different types of people when it comes to self-trust. There are people who may not even have everything figured out, and maybe they won’t achieve what they’re saying, but they have enough trust in themselves to say, “I’m going to do this.” They tell their parents their ideas, they don’t seem scared of trying, and even if they fail, at least they tried. My sister is kind of like that. Even when she hasn’t succeeded in something, she still tells my parents her ideas and somehow makes them believe that she can do it. But I feel like I’m the complete opposite. Even if I have the potential and know somewhere that I could work for something, I still have this doubt that maybe I can’t do it, maybe I won’t be able to make it, maybe I won’t be able to manage. I don’t have that much surety or trust in myself, and because of that I don’t even convince people properly. I think that’s also why I never really fight for things.
The problem is that I don’t even have clarity in my own mind. Even in 10th grade, I chose PCM because I didn’t know what I wanted. I thought if I took PCM, I would have all the options available and could decide later. I was confused between Commerce and PCM, but I chose PCM because I thought keeping my options open would be better. Sometimes now I think I should have just taken Commerce with Maths and Psychology and at least I would have had a clearer path. I feel like I don’t use my own mind properly. I keep doing whatever other people suggest.
Even with college, I later told my parents that if I had paid the DU fees and waited through the counselling process, there was a possibility that I could have gotten upgraded to a much better college because people leave seats. That made me feel even worse because maybe I had an opportunity and I didn’t understand how the process worked properly. I keep thinking maybe I should have just gone there. But then again, I know I was scared and I wasn’t clear either, so I don’t even know how much of this is my parents’ fault and how much is mine.
Now I’m in a non-central university in the same tier-3 city I belong to, and I’m scared about the lack of exposure and growth. I don’t know what kind of crowd I’m going to get. From what I’ve heard, there are people from villages, locals, people from different financial backgrounds, army families and all kinds of people, and I don’t know whether I’ll find people I actually connect with. Some people have told me that the crowd isn’t on my level and that they wouldn’t want to go there. One of my friends who studied in the same university told me that she has seen two or three people get admission there and then basically stop going to college and stay at home. That scares me because I feel like my college life might just become school again. I’ll be a day scholar, come home, and repeat the same routine.
I thought college would be the point where I finally got out of my comfort zone. I thought I would move out, meet new people, become independent, learn how to manage things, become more confident and basically become a whole different person. I thought maybe I could fight against this belief that I can’t manage things and prove to myself that I can. But now I feel like that opportunity is gone. Maybe that’s why I’m so upset about college. It’s not just about the college itself. It’s about what I thought college would do to me. I thought it would force me to grow up and change. And now I’m scared that I’ll just remain the same person.
I also had an option between BCA and BA. I thought about BCA, but then I started thinking that if I’m going to do BCA, maybe I should have just gone for B.Tech because at least after four years there’s a more direct job path. But again, I don’t even know if I like tech because I never properly tried coding. My parents suggested that I go with BA, and I got Psychology and Political Science. My mom told me that I should prepare for SSC CGL for the next three years, and if I don’t clear it, then at least we’ll have saved money and I can maybe do an MBA from a good place later. But again, it’s like everything is being decided for me. There’s nothing that I genuinely wake up and think, “This is what I want.” I don’t know if I want SSC CGL. I don’t know if I want an MBA. I don’t know if I want Psychology, Political Science, Economics, BCA, B.Tech, anything.
At this point I don’t even know if I have a victim mentality or if I’m genuinely stuck. Maybe I am just complaining about everything. Maybe the problem is actually with me. I know I made mistakes. I wasn’t serious in 11th and 12th. I wasn’t serious enough about CUET. I didn’t fight hard enough to move out. I didn’t have enough self-belief. I didn’t have clarity. Maybe if I had been more confident, I would have convinced my parents and gone to Delhi. But at the same time, I don’t know how I was supposed to magically have that confidence when I had never lived alone or done anything like that before. I just feel like there are people who have this self-belief naturally, and I don’t. I’ve been told that I can’t live alone, that I can’t manage things, that I’m too innocent or too passive, and somewhere I’ve started believing it myself. Now I don’t know how to break out of it.
I’ve also had friends make comments about my college which have made everything worse. Yesterday one of my friends said that he wanted to go to any college below North Campus and if not North Campus then BHU. He’s from a Commerce background, and when I went for my admission process I had already shared my bad experience and how upset I was about everything, so hearing him say things like that just made me feel awful. I know he probably didn’t mean it that seriously, but I’m already insecure about my college, so obviously it got to me.
I also keep seeing people who seem so happy with their lives and have everything figured out. I know I don’t know their actual reality and I know social media is only what they show, but I still compare myself. There are classmates of mine who have moved out, people who already know what they want to do, people who seem to have their entire path planned before even entering college. And I’m sitting here at 18 and I don’t even know what I want. I feel like I don’t have any purpose. There’s no spark in life right now. It’s just the same routine. I’m mostly at home all day and sometimes I’m just in bed and don’t feel like doing anything. I wanted to learn guitar, but even those classes are only 15–20 minutes away and somehow even that feels like too much effort right now.
My mom keeps telling me to start doing something, study for SSC CGL, prepare for some exam, do something productive, and I know she’s not wrong, but again it’s always something that someone else is telling me to do. I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t even feel like doing anything. I just feel like I’m existing. Earlier I sometimes had thoughts that I didn’t want to be here or wished I could just leave everything behind, and now I mostly feel numb and resigned, like “it is what it is, what else can I do?” And honestly that numbness scares me too because I don’t want to become someone who just accepts everything.
I don’t want to spend three years doing something just because everyone told me it’s the practical option, but I also don’t know what I would choose instead. I feel like I’ve talked to AI about this so many times and every time I’m told that it’s normal not to have everything figured out at 18, but then I look around and see people who apparently knew what they wanted in 6th, 7th or 10th grade and already have their path planned. I know that’s probably not the full reality, but it still makes me feel behind. And I don’t even necessarily want some huge glamorous life. I just want to feel like I’m actually living, doing things, meeting people, making memories and making decisions that are mine.
Right now I feel like I can only accept what has happened and wait for college to start and see what the reality is actually like. Maybe it will be different from what I’m imagining. Maybe there will be societies, fests, good people and opportunities. Maybe I’ll actually find something I like. But honestly right now I have almost no hope. I don’t know whether I should just accept this university and genuinely give it a chance, whether I should try to change colleges next year, whether I should focus on SSC CGL, whether I should explore BCA or B.Tech or something completely different, or how I’m even supposed to figure out what I want. I just feel completely lost, and I think the biggest problem is that I don’t trust myself enough to make a decision and stand behind it. I’ve spent so long listening to what everyone else thinks I should do that I don’t even know what my own voice sounds like anymore.