Getting Out of My Own Way

When I was young, I learned expectations of what my future should look like. I can’t say I know where it came from. I don’t know if it was something someone told me or if I concocted it myself. I needed to get a good education, a good paying job, buy a house, the list feels endless when I look back. I didn’t know it at the time but these expectations, though innocent enough, really set me up. I learned the definition of success, but it took me quite a long time to learn the gift of failure. 

It took me longer than expected to get my good education. I got to college and realized I didn’t know what I was doing there. I thought I knew, but it was the expectation I was following, not the desire. I didn’t know that many kids around me felt the same. Many others around me were walking around ‘as if’ but also had the same fear and lack of clarity that I did. I probably took more classes than I needed, just so I could figure it out! I also had a couple of classes that I did very poorly in, which was very out of my character but it’s now clear the pressure I was under.

After I finally got my degree, I didn’t get a good paying job. A good paying job was supposed to give me money in the bank and the ability to buy a home, among other things. I certainly was not able to get that. I didn’t know that a ‘good paying job’ was not a guarantee of these things or that a good paying job also did not mean a good job. It took me many years to understand the difference. And many more years to be able to buy a home.

Along the way, someone close to me basically told me to stop trying so hard. I thought I was supposed to try hard in order to fulfill all of the things I was supposed to be doing! I was quite confused and offended, frankly. I kept going and life kept dragging me down because I really wasn’t happy. Here’s what I did realize, though. I was trying too hard.

With all of the steps I took forward, I also made a lot of slips. With every slip, I felt like the things I needed to do were just out of reach. Sometimes I would get closer, or even get there, and then I would feel like I slipped again. Through much of this, I continued to look at everyone else. They really had it all together. They knew what they wanted and how to get it. I felt lower and lower as the years went by. I didn’t know it but my feelings of failure were actually making me feel like I was a huge failure. I also had a big gap in my ability to like and have faith in myself. I think that’s why I compared myself so much to others. I went several years taking steps forward, steps backward, and constantly telling myself there was something wrong with me. 

But here’s the kicker! Looking back, I was doing quite well and I didn’t even know it. I guess the expectations that pushed me also had me create some kind of timeline that made everything harder. I had an invisible timeline and an invisible set of expectations of how to get it all done. 

I finally realized, painfully, that the expectations of the past were holding me back. What is worse, it was actually me holding myself back and I didn’t even know it. Comparing myself to others was only making it worse. It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve hit some kind of ‘older and wiser’ phase where everything has fallen into perspective which is helping me seek joy and purpose instead of fulfillment through checking a box. I also recognize that I don’t have to make things so hard and I also don’t have to be so hard on myself. Sometimes I still am, but I am much happier and much more fulfilled. 

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