1mo ago

Anyone else feel they underachieved?

14 comments

Yes, but here's the trick: No one will be sitting around at the end of your life with a checklist of what you should have accomplished.
While there's a gratification to pushing yourself and your limits, there is also gratification to be found in just being. In enjoying where you are and what you have.
Slow progress is still progress. The ability to do amazing in bursts doesn't mean that you can keep up that effort/quality constantly, which is what many "normies" and authority figures when you're young seem to miss.
You're the one who gets to choose what you try to compete at, and the older I get the more comfortable I am with just competing against my own self. Myself a day ago, a month ago, a few years ago.
- That's comforting. Counter point: I'm slowly being priced-out of being able to afford living.
- No one will be sitting around at the end of your life with a checklist of what you should have accomplished.
  Anubis smirking from the underworld with a feather and some scales
- Well, there is someone around with a checklist constantly reminding me of what I should be able to accomplish and they actually do compare my every step with my peak performance. It is the part of me that was made to believe that I only have any worth if I'm achieving the best. Anything less and I'm worthless...
  I'm glad you made it out of there. Hope I'll get to this point one day, too!

We didn't underachieve, society shut us out.
- THIS

Yeah, turns out you can't realize your potential when healthcare is restricted. I was "smart" but "needs to try harder", and you really can't just "try harder" your way out of neurological problems.
Turns out that I've got some white matter hyperintensities my neurologist says is scarring from getting abused as a child, and I have a small tumor in my thalamus. I'm due for another MRI to see if the glioma has grown at all, so fingers crossed my insurance situation doesn't change between then and now, because I can't afford it otherwise.

I was told that I was smart and great at school, that I'd get some cool job like working in a lab, but those are just platitudes when you're unable to get disciplined or function consistently at your max.
And honestly, so far in my life I feel its been a blessing in disguise - while I did go for education in a specific field, graduated and failed to get a job, working simpler uneducated jobs does give a degree of freedom. You can take up odd jobs, work in a factory or in a shop if you want - whatever doesn't require a specific degree and can switch between these jobs when you kinda feel like it going for jack-of-all-trades type of build, while if you got a well-paying specialization then it's what you're pushed to be stuck doing for the rest of your life.
Maybe that's secretly my brain coming up with cope, but experiencing new things constantly for lower pay > high pay specialized work you're doing forever.
- This is super relatable but I did get a job in a highly specialized field outside what I took my degree in. Mostly luck due to having friends vouch for me and an excellent mentor teaching me on the job early on. Now I couldn't dream of making that kind of money doing so-called unskilled labor.
  Sometimes I do think about career changes to something that would let me switch off and think less about work after-hours. Usually comes down to having to start at the bottom of the career ladder again and for some silly reason worrying my colleagues would think less of me for switching fields.
  Sorry I'm rambling but your comment resonated with me.

I started seeing this from a different perspective: if the people who've told me this were thinking of themselves and others like them as examples of fulfillment when referring to my potential, then am I friggin' glad I fell off!
Wanna know why? Because I know for a fact most of them were miserable until the day they died. Well, not all of them are dead, but of those that died... you get it... My point, at least I've had some damned fine moments while doing it my way! I won't regret the story I'll leave behind.
- They are definitely dead. On the inside.
  It took me a long time to be comfortable with the fact that people hated me. I eventually learned that I had the courage to do things they wish they could have done with their time. Instead they worked themselves into a life of constant pain and misery.
  Not understanding why I received so much hate was a mindfuck itself. At least now I know I can be proud of my past actions. They were able to target their insecurities. In my opinion, words alone could never reach that deep.
  If I spent all my time reaching my potential, I would have never had time to experience life. I know I made the right choices when I look into those dead, judgemental eyes. All the bullshit words in world could never bring a light back into those eyes.
  
  Oh, a lot of them are proper-dead in my case!:)) But, yes, automatons. That's all they were. Working for the System is all that they knew, respecting the System is all that they knew, and supplication to the System was their only belief.

all those adults' ignorant "encouragement" (guilt-tripping) turned out to be just more toxic positivity (toxic toxicity)
- You're just not trying hard enough. You could do it if you tried; you're not stupid.

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