I often feel as if I will never succeed. As if there will always be more to accomplish, and always more ways to fail. I will always have chances and challenges, and it is my duty to rise to meet them. This, in it’s own way, is true. It is true that to meet the expectations of the world, in order to “succeed” as the world puts it, there must be a challenge to overcome. Another obstacle to rid the world of, and if you move it aside, if you triumph over that obstacle, then you can have your success. Only then, will you be seen as someone with a purpose. 

This is the idea with which I based my younger years on. Always striving to meet the next challenge, exceed the next expectation, thinking that if I kept winning again and again, I would be at peace. I would have a place. I would feel like I was where I belonged. And so, I worked harder and harder. My work became the very essence of who I was. Yet, to myself I was never enough, and to others I was more than enough.

It’s weird how people can never see past themselves. They’re too focused on their own thoughts and interpretations of the world to even consider that those ideas could have faults. That’s what happened to me. I was stuck. Stuck in a cycle that never ended. I was certain that I could do more, that I wasn’t living up to my potential. I fought for new ways to prove myself or to make myself known, but as soon as I was done with one challenge I started another. And another. And another. And soon it became too much. My self image crumbled because I couldn’t keep up with the stress I was piling on myself. And my self doubt made me want to prove myself even more. So it went on and on in a cycle. And to everyone else in the world outside my little bubble of low self esteem and doubt, I had already done more than enough. But no matter what, I just couldn’t see it.

So it went on. But here’s the catch: eventually I noticed something. 

I was never going to be enough.

That was that. The truth was out. Finally I admitted to myself that I could never possibly live up to the standards of perfection I had set. And that thought was terrifying. Was I going to live forever in the shadow of my self deprecation, and never be able to look at myself thinking, “I am genuinely proud of who I am”?

Perhaps. But as the idea sank in, I realized something else. That was not how I wanted to live my life. I didn’t want to be stuck in that cruel, never ending cycle. I wanted to be proud of myself, and to strive to be the best I could be, knowing full well that perfection wouldn’t be the end goal. 

And so I tried to do that. I tried to be my best self, while keeping in mind that that best self would never be flawless or foolproof. And to be entirely honest, that was incredibly hard. To lower the expectations that I’d set for myself my entire life, that was a huge challenge. And one that I’m still working on to this day. But as I kept at it, there was noticeable change in my life. In school, at home, with friends, playing sports, I was different. Slowly but surely, I was realizing that I was just a human. A flawed, imperfect, broken down human. And to my surprise, I was starting to be okay with that.