feeling down

LegacyUser

Not quite sure where to start or why im even bothering to write this. Im 25 tomorrow and just trying to evaluate my life and the choices I took. I guess im just disappointed as what I achieved from the potential I always showed at a young age. I got a very good undergrad degree, a 1.1 infact. I am currently doing my masters and Im still on for a 2.1 although i do have some repeats coming up soon which is annoying me and im struggling to motivate myself...its ben a very tough year!!!

I know I have a lot going for me, I have a large circle of friends that are amazing to me and are always there when im facing difficult times such as when i was recently in hospital and when my dad got diagnosed with cancer. I have a job that il b starting in September for the next three years. however compared to both my sisters i fail dismally and i see myself as a failure. My family have all very high powered jobs (as will i) but their accomplishments always outweigh my best. education is key in my family. both my sisters finished top in both their classes and were always getting awards for achieving outstanding results and i know i have done well but never received any of the gold medals/bursaries they have and some times i feel a failure to my parents

I also feel a failure in life. I am an outgoing guy and have a great social life. I am told I am a genuine guy and supposedly very good looking too. I dont normally have any trouble scoring girls on nights out but have very little interest in them after that. there is one particular girl i have a major crush on. we are great friends and talk on the phone almost daily. we met in college three years ago. she is everything i want for in a girl. shes beautiful. intelligent, genuine, spontaneous and i get on really well with her,we share so much in common and we always have a great laugh when we hang out together which is fairly often but unfortunately she doesnt see me as anything other than a friend, we had this conversation and it killed me. we didnt stop contact although i know it would have been best for me, cos we get on so well together...and i help her out alot too. id often do some of her assignments and get As in them for her even though its not my field shes studying

i guess i always thought by the time i was 25 i would be in a relationship by now. its my sisters wedding in a few wks and im not looking forward to all my relations asking me why i dont have a girlfriend.

sry for such a long post and i thank you for reading it. im not sure what kind of advice im looking for, guess i just needed to off load a few things i feel burdened with!

looksee

At intervals through most people's lives they do evaluations. You have just hit the 'quarter of a century', and it sounds a bit daunting. So what are the problems?

You have had some issues and worries recently, so you are probably a bit emotionally 'run down' and tired, along with the rest of your family, maybe things are a bit edgy there too. Try to accept that you are entitled to feel a bit weary, give yourself a break.

You say yourself that you have a lot going for you, and you do. You are comparing yourself with your sisters. Why? You are not your sisters, you seem to be doing fine, you have the next three years of a job sorted, which is more than a lot of people can say!

Its ok to feel a bit down now and again. Its fine to do an evaluation of your life sometimes. A bit of realistic analysis wouldn't come amiss either - the girl you fancy doesn't reciprocate, but she is willing to be a friend, - sounds like she has a handy source of someone to do college work for her - how will that help her when she comes to do exams? Stop that, let her do her own work. You can have a girl as a friend without a romantic interest, but until you realise it isn't going anywhere you are not likely to get involved with anyone else.

So. Its the middle of a dreary summer, events catching up with you, all the attention on the wedding, repeat exams to look forward to. Round up a couple of friends and do something - go for a hike or surfing, plan a party, dig the garden. Your life is going ok, and better than many. Get on with it!

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

tricialou

You are only 25 and you are doing great!!!! only problem is you are comparing yourself to other people . do you ever think they might be comparing themselves to you! you need more confindence. As for the girl anyone who asks a guy to do an assign for them is an opportunist and it says a lot about her charachter!

justdontknowanymore

justdontknowanymore wrote: »

Not quite sure where to start or why im even bothering to write this. Im 25 tomorrow and just trying to evaluate my life and the choices I took. I guess im just disappointed as what I achieved from the potential I always showed at a young age.

Me too. And I was in fact worse than you. Looking back at my 4-14ish self I was always top of the class. Everything came easily to me. I was even atheletic in many ways. But I got too into computer games. Crap books. Sitting around being lazy and from 14 to a bit older than you I just got steadily worse and lazier. I KNOW I did not and still have not achieved the potential I could have and likely never will. I wasted that time and it is time I will not get back. My own degree took 5 years as I failed a year, not 4, and I got a result not as good as yours. And so on and so on.

What I realised and what you likely need to too is that sitting lamenting this lost time and lost potential does not bring anything. The only concern and questions one needs to ask is "What can I do now? Where can I go from here? What is my potential from this moment and how can I best work towards it?".

As you say you have a lot going for you - some of it very good stuff - so what matters is only how you proceed from here - not how you might have failed to realise the best of your potential in the past.

justdontknowanymore wrote: »

however compared to both my sisters i fail dismally and i see myself as a failure.

What I also realised in my life is that you will always be a failure if your standard of measurement lies in others rather than yourself. There will always someone who does it better than you. There is always someone you can look up to and see yourself as a relative failure.

What is important to realise - though incredibly difficult to realise and actually believe in yourself but it is doable and very liberating once you do - is that the only person you should be judging your standards against today is the you from yesterday.

In other words you should not try to be as good or better than anyone else around you. The only person you have to be better than today is the person you were yesterday.

When you realise this and apply it to your life then your goal in life becomes simply bettering yourself each day - physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually or whatever - in some way over the day before. Failures to do this still happen - but successes far outweigh them numerically and you become a better person and FEEL a better person as a result.

Of course it is still impossible to resist occasionally looking around and comparing yourselves to others. I sometimes do and I find that one brother is earning more money than me and has a more "important" job for example. Or people are better at doing some of the things I do than me. I am not the best at anything by a long shot. But as an all round person I would be forgiven for feeling "better" than many though I try to resist such pride and arrogance.

But what I find now is that I do not care. I am happy in myself and with my own standards even when my standards to not meet that of others.

I am healthy - I run, I cycle, I do capoeira, I swim. I do brazilian jiu jitsu.

I am intelligent - I read, I learn, I study, I am learning a language. I am at peace - I am in a relationship, I meditate and teach a meditation class, I work in the garden and find great peace in growing things, I cook at great length and love the food and it makes me feel good.

I am kind - I give the vipassana classes free to those in need, students, alcoholics, depressives. I dedicate time to charities and helping others. And I give lots of time to my friends and my daughter and my partners.

I am happy with who I am in myself - not who I am compared to others.

I am not trying to blow my own trumpet by saying how great I am in all of these things. The point I am trying to get accross is how important it is to divest yourself of this need to compare yourself to others rather than against your own goals and targets. Because to do the latter will mean you will likely always fail and rest assured those successful sisters of yours - whether they admit it or not - likely also have people in their lives they look at and feel like failures compared to. As do they - and they - and they in a long unending chain of insecurities.

I do not mean to make any of this sound easy. We are a social species prone to comparing ourselves to others. But it is a chain that is breakable and one is generally always much better for it.

LegacyUser

You are going through a quarter life crisis. It's fairly common I believe, I went through similar for a few years,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quarter-life_crisis