“i feel like i haven’t achieved enough”

9/3/23

Email:

“I know this isn’t necessarily a girl-related issue, but it's just been something I’ve been struggling with recently as a girl who has just graduated high school. I want to be somebody and I want to do something with my life. I have this weird feeling of worthlessness because I haven’t achieved much or lived my “life to the fullest” as people say?”

Our advice:

I’m so glad you asked this because it strays into philosophy which is something that I personally love and am super passionate about. I think that you need to ask yourself a quick question:

“What do I deem as an achievement? What do I deem as success or ‘living life to the fullest?’ What is my idea of this?”

People tend to trap themselves in a state of perpetual worry (a sort of existential dread) and will not take a moment to pause, look around, and revel in the small things. 

I am so guilty of doing this myself, but this is how I think about it:  

I feel like I can’t ever stop wasting time. I want to do something with my life: I want to be everything, achieve all I can achieve, and make my mark on the world in a way that is transferable and will live on longer than my body does, but instead I spend my time going to sleep, reading new books, singing in my car on drives back from school, or hanging out with my friends. I take my dog for walks, I swim in oceans and rivers and lakes, or dance with the people I love – but then I think – maybe this is what it's really all about.

I came to this revelation at 1 a.m. with a group of my friends. We were at one of their houses, and he lives out in the middle of nowhere, so – kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision – we suddenly got up and started sprinting out into the woods. We were running and jumping and screaming until our lungs stung and then we lay out in the middle of the road on the other side of the forest where a car hadn’t driven by in days and just lay there looking up into endless darkness. 

I wasn’t doing anything that one might deem a “success” or an “achievement” or even “living my life to the fullest”. I was simply being a human, and that was enough. I realized that in that moment I was so fulfilled, and it was the small things in life that mattered most to me. 

Now, I like to imagine my life, not as one long novel, or even a compilation of short stories, but rather as a collection of small, meaningful poems. Ones that are filled with emotions – both good and bad – and encapsulate the uniqueness of what it means to live. These poems aren’t dictated by achievement or success; they’re always acute and injected with feeling. 

You don’t need to be anyone. You don’t need to “achieve” anything (whatever the hell that means). You can just be, and that's what it's truly all about. 

This perspective can be so difficult to have, but during the small moments you do, it's so refreshing. I hope at least a tiny bit of that resonates with you. 

You are not worthless, by any means. Everything happens for a reason, and everything will sort itself out. If it doesn’t become clear to you how, that's okay too. 

Stop worrying about some indefinable construct like “success” or “achievement.” Do things because you love them, be kind to yourself and other people, and literally just feel things. 

That is what it’s all about, I promise. 

Sophia Rundle <3