One moment, I’m looking at parts of my life coming together, and I’m feeling more accomplished than ever before. The next moment, some girl I met over the summer is committing to Harvard. Feeling ashamed that I was dilly-dallying doing something else besides “grinding” the night before, I feel guilty for not working towards creating a bright future for myself.
Looking at all the prestigious colleges, and endless piles of work brought upon me, I can’t help but think about if it’s all going to be worth it. Seeing other people your age who seem to have their whole future planned out sometimes makes me wonder: What am I doing wrong? What is it I need to fix? Why am I not there yet?
There’s a strong worry of not knowing where you’re going to end up, what you’re going to end up doing, or when you’re going to get there. That’s when comparing your own achievements to others starts to hinder self-growth.
Coming from a household where achievements meant everything, I built my self-confidence brick by brick earning A’s and swim medals. Self-loathing inevitably ensued when I came to the realization that the medals I won or the grades I got were never going to be the best of the best.
As my wandering eyes left my station of work, I looked at other opportunities left and right in the hopes to fluff up my college resume and outdo my peers even if, at the time, it’s not what I wanted, nor did I have any passion for. Seeing everybody around me achieve the academic excellence I could only have dreamed of made me feel a type of hopelessness that I’ve never encountered before.
In those moments of despair, as the people around me, whether it be friends, classmates or acquaintances, achieved greatness in their respective fields of interest, I couldn’t help but feel envious.
This feeling overtakes all other senses of joy and accomplishment. The more other people seem to thrive once they’ve established what they want to invest their time in, the more I rush myself into other extracurricular activities to make up for the simple, disappointing fact that I don’t have anything figured out yet.
Despite this painstaking feeling, and to add fuel to the fire, there’s the stigma around not being allowed to feel envy or jealousy in the sense that it’s bad for human kind, and that you’re selfish for feeling this way; that you should always be happy for others no matter the circumstance. I’ve learned that not only are these emotions normal, they can be beneficial.
To start off, the ability to generate such an intense emotion in the first place reveals that you care a great deal. Whatever it is that you’re envious about, you’ve come across this feeling because of your personal connection with it and, that ultimately means, the way you feel is nothing to be ashamed of. The way you thrive and connect with your progress is immeasurable. How you determine what you classify as an accomplishment is a self-recognized achievement, not something to be dictated by others and what they’re doing.
Taking time for yourself, whether it be working on something you truly care about, or something that relaxes you means being able to pay attention to your personal growth rather than comparing yourself to the people around you.
I’m able to live and thrive knowing that I have incredibly hard-working people around me who know what they want to do while simultaneously pushing me forward in achieving my goals. As hard as it is to focus on my own path rather than peering at forks that lead to somebody else’s, it’s a step I’m willing to take in achieving overall happiness.
