Potential

Maybe I'm too stuck in the past. I try not to be but I'm constantly thinking about what was and what could have been. I think it's really starting to hold me back. I struggle to figure out my place in the world. I know, it's not like I'm alone in that regard but I'm not just hampered by my lack of direction - beyond just feeling completely aimless, I feel almost completely useless. I've basically decided that I'm incapable of doing anything at all. I feel guilty about that. My life started out with such promise.

In some ways I wish I was back at school. I tell myself that I was happier then. I don't know if that's true - certainly in high school I was no more comfortable in my own skin than I am now - but I felt like the world made sense to me at that time in my life and I felt like I knew my place in that world.

I did well at school. In high school I was involved in the student council, I was actively involved in organising a lot of extra-curricular activities, I played lots of sports, and I got along pretty well with just about everybody, students and teachers alike. I was a good student and I graduated in the top three percent of my home state. My grades were high enough that I was accepted into a very competitive and highly-regarded course at a good university. I should have been proud of myself and really happy with my achievements, but I wasn't.

I felt like a fraud. I convinced myself I didn't belong there and that I was really just some stupid person who had somehow managed to fool people into thinking I was smart. Just like that I disregarded who I was and what I was working towards. It was irrational but it made sense to me at the time. Although I didn't quit - I rarely, if ever, let myself quit anything even if I hate it; I'm not sure if that's because of determination or whether I just like to make myself suffer sometimes - I felt like I had no place there. I switched a couple of classes but completed the semester, feeling rather emotionally drained by the end of it. Nothing could convince me I wasn't a failure, not even the good grades I got at the end of the semester (again, rather irrational), so I ended up deferring my studies and getting a job. I ultimately decided to change courses and change schools and recommenced my studies at the beginning of the following year.

Though I still didn't have any confidence in myself, I felt I needed to get a university degree so I completed the course and got my ultimately meaningless piece of paper. That gave me neither a sense of satisfaction or worth nor did it change my opinion of myself. I was still a failure. I went back to full-time work, worked hard for a couple of years, albeit in a job that wasn't particularly intellectually demanding, before deciding that I needed a holiday. I've been traveling, on and off, ever since.

But, after an extended break from having a steady job, I no longer feel capable of doing anything. I would like to possibly continue my studies but don't have any confidence in my ability to do so. And I have got to a point where I consider myself incapable of getting a job. I keep coming back to the idea that I feel disconnected from the world and can't find my place but I think I've convinced myself I don't have a place. I'm stuck.

I feel guilty that I didn't make something of myself even though I had every opportunity to. And that I didn't is just another of my innumerable flaws.