The pressure to be in the right place, at the right time in your life can be immensely overwhelming. But the thing is, life is not a perfect sequence of events that unfolds effortlessly before us as long as we don’t screw it up. There is no guarantee that your most defining moments will happen in the order you hope they will and in a lot of cases, those milestones you are so sure you’re supposed to reach may not even happen at all.
So much of our lives are based on what we believe they’re supposed to be like. We look at the lives of our parents, our friends, our favorite bloggers on Instagram, and we use them as blueprints for our own. But this can only result in frustration and a sense of inadequacy because it doesn’t matter how much we try and replicate, at the end of the day, we can’t force ourselves to be exactly like someone else. Life just doesn’t work that way.
I struggle with this constantly because I am always feeling like something is missing from my life. I admittedly have always done things a little differently. My parents are Jehovah’s Witnesses (I am not) and growing up I didn’t get to do a lot of stuff my classmates got to (no school dances, no football games, etc.) which left me feeling very isolated and just kind of like a weirdo. I don’t fault my parents because its something they truly believe in and they are so endlessly supportive of me and my lifestyle now but it’s hard to be the weird girl at school when you’re 15. This drove me to deeply desire a feeling of belonging (like most kids do) and to just be like everyone else.
I dropped out of college when I was 21 and pursued my career in retail management with Victoria’s Secret. While I was thrilled to be getting promotion after promotion, I had a hard time grappling with the fact that I hadn’t finished school. I felt a lot of shame because I saw all of my friends graduating and I felt like a failure because I just couldn’t swing a full-time school schedule and a more than full-time workload. I told my friends and family (and myself) that I was “just taking a break” but I knew in my heart that I wasn’t going back. School just wasn’t for me and it never would be.
Then after 6 years of building a career with Victoria’s Secret, I quit to pursue my lifelong dream of becoming a writer. I decided to do the freelance and blogging thing and just make it work anyway I could. No more guaranteed paychecks, no more health insurance, no more paid time off.
I don’t mean to make all of these decisions sound like huge burdens I was forced to bear, because they aren’t. While, like most things in life, they come with their own unique challenges, at the end of the day I chose this path because it’s where my heart led me (so cheesy but accurate, sorry) and it’s what feels right.
And while I’m so proud of myself for being brave and doing my own thing I still deal with constant insecurity about my life and where I think I’m supposed to be at this stage in it. No matter how much I do or how much I’ve already accomplished I can’t help but believe I should be doing more and working harder. I know this is because I feel the pressure to have this successful, amazing life since I didn’t choose to go down the typical path of the bachelor’s degree and the 9-5 job. So to prove myself I feel like I must show that the path I did choose is fabulous and perfect to validate my decision.
I think a lot of my friends and family would tell you I work really hard and that they think what I’m doing is really cool. And while, of course, I feel that way too there has always been a part of me that shouts out “this isn’t good enough! You need to be better!” every day and I struggle to drown out that voice.
I know that this voice is incorrect but I also do believe that there are moments when I hold myself back out of my crippling fear of failure.
It’s hard because I live in this constant state of wanting to give myself some grace while simultaneously wanting to push myself harder. I am both doing my best and am also never enough.
I have always been someone who is terrified of not working hard enough. I never want people to think that I’m lazy or that I don’t put in enough effort. So if I feel like I’m not being productive enough, I begin to panic. And it seems like all of my creativity begins to slip out of my fingers.
I can easily trace this feeling back to when I was a senior in high school my school announced that there was a scholarship program open to the entire class. Any senior could submit an application and all of the teachers would be holding a meeting where they would review the applications and decide whose applications were good enough to be officially submitted.
We all submitted applications (I went to a very small school, so yes, I know this) and most likely immediately forgot about it. I was working part time at KFC at the time (LOL) and getting ready to move to San Francisco and start college in just a few short months.
At the end of my AP English class one day my teacher asked me if I could stay after class for a few minutes. I liked my teacher, although not a lot of my peers did. I thought she was smart and straight forward and because of that, it felt that much better when you got a good grade or words of praise from her. I respected her opinion.
She told me that earlier that day the teacher’s meeting had taken place where they reviewed all the scholarship applications. She said when mine came up, everyone was really impressed by my essay but that she became very confused when a lot of my teachers started saying that it was too bad I was such a slacker. She said she defended me and told them that she didn’t really get what they were saying. I had an A+ in her class and was an excellent writer. One by one they chimed in, saying that I had C’s in their classes and did the bare minimum. That my assignments were turned into at the very last minute. That I never raised my hand in class. That I was clearly a kid who just didn’t care.
I told her that everything the other teachers were saying was true. I did slack off in those classes. I didn’t like them. I was bad at math and science. The only part of school I enjoyed was English because I could write.
And even though I knew that this didn’t define me as a person, it still hurt. I still felt embarrassed and stupid and unworthy. I felt like a loser. And this feeling stayed with me when I went to college too because it just seemed to get worse. I started working at Victoria’s Secret and quickly moved up the management ladder and found myself working overtime every day. And school just wasn’t a priority for me. My heart was never in it.
I would fall asleep in my classes because I was getting up at 3:30 am to work an 8-hour shift and then heading straight to class for another 8 hours. I often skipped class to stay late at VS and I ignored my bad grades in favor of celebrating the praise I received at work.
It wasn’t until I realized that I was failing a good chunk of my classes (ignorance is bliss?) that I knew I just couldn’t do it anymore. I hated school. I have always hated school. I didn’t want to be there. And not in a typical, “school is so boring and a lot of hard work but at least it will pay off someday” kind of way. In a, “I hate how I feel when I’m here and I am so miserable” kind of way. Not fun.
I dropped out and I was ashamed. I was embarrassed that I couldn’t do it all. I saw my peers handling their school work and their jobs and I hated that I wasn’t like them. Those feelings of shame crept up again and I thought about how all of those teachers were right. I was a slacker.
It took a lot of time, but slowly, I realized that just because I wasn’t a good student didn’t mean I wasn’t good at other things. I was a great manager. And I am a great writer. I understand business and sales and marketing. I am great with social media and website design and planning. I have many, valuable skills that helped me excel in the workforce and put me in a position where I was able to quit my job and start doing my own thing. Not everyone gets to say that.
And yes, I have a lot of friends who graduated from college and do very cool things and I am so happy for them. Because that is what they wanted. But I work hard to not let it make me feel bad about myself anymore. I don’t have to want the same things as everyone else. We all have different paths and I have learned to love mine.
Turning 25 has definitely put me into comparison mode. Whether I’m comparing myself to my friends and where they’re at in their careers and relationships or I’m comparing myself to the version of 25-year-old me I had dreamed up when I was a kid. The question still echoes through my head all the time. Am I truly where I’m supposed to be?
While there are still so many things I want to do and I definitely do have some regrets, I think the thing I will regret most is living a life where I spend all of my time wishing it were different. Instead of just living and enjoying the moment.
I know now that the school version of Sheila is not who I am. If you ask anyone who has ever worked with me in any capacity they will tell you that I am not a slacker. They will tell you that not only do I work hard, but my work is quality. I am smart and ambitious and I have an unparalleled work ethic. I just needed to find my thing. School wasn’t it. But this, sharing my story, writing every day, creating content, this is it. This is my path. And it may not look like everyone else’s but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important.
If you’re feeling like you’re not good enough or you just haven’t “made it” yet, don’t feel alone. I’m pretty sure we all feel that way in regards to at least one part of our lives. The important thing to remember is that the only way you’re doing this whole life thing wrong is if you’re wasting time focusing on what you don’t have instead of what you do. All of the things we want will come over time. Just be patient and enjoy where you are right now.
Xo, She
