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I am Always Frustrated
Yes, it’s self-inflicted. No, I haven’t figured it out yet. Yes, I’m working on it.
In a recent mental-break down, my mother gave me a couple of hard truths, and I have never felt more seen. I was crying in a gas station bathroom, wringing a paper towel and disparaging myself yet again. She said to me “You thought you were going to be an immediate success after college, didn’t you? You thought you were going to figure out ‘who you are’ before you turned 30. Well guess what? No one really knows who they are, and certainly not at 24.”
Oof. Yeah, I did think I would be an immediate success after college. And why wouldn’t I? As an academic over-achiever, I had spent 17 years of formal schooling excelling at anything I put my mind to. I knocked high school out of the park, earned two degrees, and picked up an extra minor and a certificate in college because I was bored and it was paid for by the state. I always ended up with a leadership role in any club or job that I had, whether I wanted it or not.
School, and the activities that surrounded it, came naturally to me because the expectations were clear.
I derived my identity from the praise I received as a student: impossibly good grades, valuable contributor to class discussions, integral office aid in all of the…
