This letter really reminds me of my young self. The thing is, LW, I really thought that living a life of Excellence and Inspiration would shield me from some of the mundanity and drudgery of life. But I burned out at 30, exhausted by perfectionism and people-pleasing. And guess what - life has taught me that we're almost ALL deeply mediocre, even if we push ourselves like crazy to avoid this fate. Excellence and striving are fine, but the things that make life worth living don't burn as brightly as the "starry" moments - and look around you! Virtually everyone has to grind their way through the little mundanities of life. There is no point in making yourself a highly-strung mess to attain some form of perfection that in all likelihood won't even make you happy.
LW, this moment is a gift. Something in your mind and body is telling you that you can't live like this. It may or may not be your career that's unsustainable, or your thwarted creative side, or just the lies that you have grown up with in a toxic culture or (maybe) an emotionally unaware or emotionally suppressive family. You don't have to figure it all out right now, but you do have to be open to noticing what makes you feel most alive and what traps you in the old patterns.
If you don't achieve your dream at this moment, there's no need to panic. There are many ways and paths to achieve the outcome that you most want. Think about what appeals to you in the dream job OUTSIDE OF the status and prestige. You'll figure it out if you're open to the messages that this moment wants you to receive.
I feel so strongly about this because I see young people every day who are frantically contorting themselves into a future-friendly shape before they even know who they are. Stop; listen; notice what your body is telling you about the present moment, and try to let your whirring mind take a back seat for a moment. You'll figure it out, I promise ❤️
"Dare to be ordinary." I heard these words in my head years ago while walking, and I’m not sure where they came from—perhaps from all the books I’ve read or the reflections I’ve had. But when that voice emerged, the words resonated so deeply that they changed my life. It was as if a tremendous weight I hadn’t even realized I was carrying was suddenly lifted—the weight of inner tyranny.
Paradoxically, it’s only in embracing our ordinariness that the extraordinary reveals itself, for one cannot exist without the other. Since then, little by little, I’ve begun to dare to simply be myself, embracing both the darkness and the light along the way.
I love this letter, and Polly’s response is written so beautifully<3
when you wrote, "Our prayers are also education. Our love is transformative. You tell me about how you feel, and I jump into the river and start writing, and my compassion for you is like a prayer, and your kind words to me are also a prayer, and we’re connected and we bring strength to each other and it matters," and "What I see in you is someone who doesn’t refuse the gifts she’s given. You welcome everything bright and lovely into your heart and treasure it, and you’re humbled by it." woah!!! a part of me felt so incredibly seen reading this that it brought tears to my eyes. this is beautifully written, i can feel your heart and its passion. reading this felt like you placed a warm hand on my cheek and caressed it the way a mother does her child when everything feels crazy and overwhelming. thank you, Heather. good luck to TSR, i hope they are able to take away the beauty and magic of this piece and feel worthy of the incredible life they dream of.
"Let go of this idea you're peculiarly wrong to do the basic things to thrive." Yep, this is me! Ha, with ADHD and depression, I fail myself so many times. Combine that with a disappointed mean and emotionally abusive dad that gets angry and passive aggressive when I fail to do something I promised to do, you have someone with the deep born belief that "happiness doesn't exist" because I don't think I'm capable of doing the basic things to thrive. I feel broken.
But I'm not, anon. Its hard to turn off the commentary in my head, but dude, you're NOT broken. The majority of people who make good art, they just showed up, and they fucked around and they cried a lot. And you're reading this and you might think "but I can't do that. I can't show up consistently, I can't fuck around, I can't try" and Just turn off the commentary. You got a DEGREE in medicine, you're CLEARLY accustomed to hard work, and you downgrade your booksmarts but it takes a lot of trying to study well, do well on tests, etc. All the people with incredible lives you see, you font see the full picture. Maybe one regrets their leap, maybe the others tortured with anxiety, the point is its EXTREMELY likely they're experiencing the same AMBIVALENCR as you. In your warped worldview, you just see this as another point against you "Oh there's still something wrong with me since I can't push past my shame and make these leaps" I shoot the person in your head saying that. That commentary isn't helpful, its not pragmatic or problem-solving, its solely about perpetuating your own shame cycle. Im saying this to myself really, because its very hard to be programtic or problem solving or turn off my own negative inner commentary. But like Polly said, we're all the same. One of my friends who's a great writer also has a job they're not that excited about, struggling with their twenties, etc.
Also give yourself more credit. You got a degree, despite the mental health issues and suicidality and a global pandemic. That gap year doesn't fucking matter, do you know how many people with incredible lives had a gap year or dropped out of college altogether? You got out of it, and that's what matters. I left college two weeks ago, and its possible I've fucked up everything but I made my choice and I'm forgiving myself for it. I was also dealing with anxiety and suicidality because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I repressed my emotions for a year following a major I despised.
Just... its going through the motions. It really is, as Polly reminded me. I always think there's some deep internal aspect of me I need to rely upon, but in reality, so much of motivation, ambition, pleasure, and joy comes from exercise, getting enough sleep, and just listening to your screaming inner baby and doing it anyways. Its humbling. It also means there's less of an excuse not todo the hard work.
As another person going through what you wrote - I'm proud of you. I'm glad you exist and write so truthfully and well! And we'll survive and thrive 💖 much love.
1) most people are average. By definition, this is obvious, but internalizing it is hard. Most people aren't in first place! They are "mediocre". (and, it's fundamentally anathema to me to think that that means that they don't deserve good things.)
2) your twenties are, as a friend of mine told me with eye-opening casualness, "the doldrums". Mine were decidedly mediocre - sometimes great but a lot of the time miserable in uninteresting average ways - and I'm actually extremely happy with my life right now.
I don't think if those two things are helpful to you now, but they were and are helpful to me later. Basically, you'll be okay.
(Also if you feel bad about yourself all the time, consider talking to your doctor about depression and getting some antidepressants. Possibly I could have put this as #3 on the list of important late twenties discoveries.)
adding to the mediocre thing, people label lack of external success as "mediocre" but like? so what? You can have external success and be miserable because of the way you're put on a pedestal, you lose your public privacy (mediocrity is a blessing when you can go out and get lunch without being stopped by a fan for an autograph. You have to be ON all the time if you gain any big type of fame), or even unrelated to success you have illnesses, money problems, etc. LIFE will always be imperfect anda mixed bag, but that doesn't mean its not incredible. Even one of my friends, an incredibly ambitious person aiming to be a climate activist, involved with clubs, earned competitive internship, wishes to get their PHD, the person LW likely envies? hes burnt out, struggles with anxiety, bit of a workaholic, hes got anxieties about his romance because hr loves the person a Lot but Jes well aware its rare for relationships in early twenties to be permanent, and his life is imperfect in a lot of ways. And you could still call him "mediocre" since he's not at an IVY league university, or he hasn't won awards for fixing some climate change specific problem, but that's the point. The chase for fame and success is inherently worthless. It's about what you love, youre connected to, what makes you feel good. Mediocre people absolutely deserve good things because mediocre people are friends, lovers, siblings, and they're the gears that turn the world. You can't escape the mundaities and drudgery of the world, hahah.
Glad someone else also wants to recommend potential treatment for depression. It’s incredible how different the world feels once that chemical imbalance stops putting its cloudy veil over everything.
Thank you. “We are all the same” is the message I took from here. Strangely, the words reverberating in my thought was a line from an anime, “one for all and all for one”, and I understood this differently in another light today. I understood in a manner I never had before.
I also want to add Michel Foucault’s wisdom: he said that if a lamp can be an object of art, why cannot my life be one? He was a believer that in our life, we don’t find ourselves: there is no our original self. The be “me”. He wanted us to create ourselves. The delusion that you have to be somebody you original are, as if you already exist in a plane unknown to you. He found that quite, not right. And I think you echo these thoughts: create yourself. You are what you think you are; your thoughts that you believe in right are only but thoughts that you believe in yourself at this time. Create yourself. Change. Change to whom you want the most to be.
<3 Trying is happiness <3 I empathize with the LW as I had a similar experience in my early 20’s in a competitive medical program. I failed out and it took a long time to forgive myself but I had to admit how hard it was with panic attacks, depression, adhd? and little support - I was alone because of the shame. If you had told me it would be 7 years of straight misery I prob would have not held on. I’m grateful I did because my life is not what I imagined it would be and 23 year old me lacked imagination. My world is big and I’ve been able to travel but I’m happy to be under the covers with a book and warm cup of coffee. I’m a nurse so I still long for a dream gone but I’m glad to be in the hospital and to be good at what I do. I’m happy to be alive and it’s hard to feel this way if you’re constantly in the past (regret) and in the future (anxiety). Heal your body, be gentle with your soul and know that 24 is young. Old is 90 honestly. Too late is when you’re dead.
Also I think we should rethink of our 20’s as the time to deprogram from whatever our childhood conditioning was. Take what worked and admit that raising someone is an impossible task when we are all too different and need different things. Even if your upbringing was not traumatic, you still need to commit to the kind of person you want to be. Don’t go it alone, love and be loved too!
Well this letter was exactly perfect for me right now. Like the LW I am a recovering overachiever in a transition phase, trying to figure out what to do with my weird career choices. Thank you both, LW and Polly!
The advice to try over and over again, and that it's always hard, and that it's always a prayer, and that feeling your suffering prepares you for the work--yes. Yes yes yes.
Lately it feels as if every post was made just for me; a tender solvent to the exact twisted, aching wound that is calling out most fervently, an answered prayer to what my heart whispers for most… I’m sure I’m not alone in this feeling, and that is a big part of the healing magic in these posts… The reminder that we are all, truly, equal. In our darkest sufferings and our deepest desires.. what a relief ♥️
Dear TSR and Polly- thank you both for your courage and vulnerability in writing these words- exactly the words I needed to read this morning. My stuck-in-the-middle-of-drivel-and-drudgery self feels grateful to be alive right now, connected to you and everyone and every unspecial/special speck of stardust and grain of sand. Jumping into the river and seeing where it takes me today…
Some days I look at my creative work and say, wow! Other days I look and say failure, failure failure. Likewise the news, the world, and everything in it is amazing, other times I am uninspired. I am confident that humans have not really explored our psyches' yet. But it helps to look at our brain activity, our spirits and our bodies as if we are studying the weather, seasonal cycles and the patterns to changes in the universe. As others have said, see a doctor if this is something long term and share with them that your brain is not cooperating and dashing your hopes. Be gentle, and do not push yourself to do anything. Wait and see and be patient. Start small, do I feel like standing or laying down? Do I feel an impulse to roll around? Going back to infancy explore the light between your fingers, make goofy noises, hum. Little by little as you feel freed stuff will start to emerge. This letter and Heather's letter both have saved me from all the same complaints today. Everything looked like crap. I started writing and became surprised by what emerged.
This letter really reminds me of my young self. The thing is, LW, I really thought that living a life of Excellence and Inspiration would shield me from some of the mundanity and drudgery of life. But I burned out at 30, exhausted by perfectionism and people-pleasing. And guess what - life has taught me that we're almost ALL deeply mediocre, even if we push ourselves like crazy to avoid this fate. Excellence and striving are fine, but the things that make life worth living don't burn as brightly as the "starry" moments - and look around you! Virtually everyone has to grind their way through the little mundanities of life. There is no point in making yourself a highly-strung mess to attain some form of perfection that in all likelihood won't even make you happy.
LW, this moment is a gift. Something in your mind and body is telling you that you can't live like this. It may or may not be your career that's unsustainable, or your thwarted creative side, or just the lies that you have grown up with in a toxic culture or (maybe) an emotionally unaware or emotionally suppressive family. You don't have to figure it all out right now, but you do have to be open to noticing what makes you feel most alive and what traps you in the old patterns.
If you don't achieve your dream at this moment, there's no need to panic. There are many ways and paths to achieve the outcome that you most want. Think about what appeals to you in the dream job OUTSIDE OF the status and prestige. You'll figure it out if you're open to the messages that this moment wants you to receive.
I feel so strongly about this because I see young people every day who are frantically contorting themselves into a future-friendly shape before they even know who they are. Stop; listen; notice what your body is telling you about the present moment, and try to let your whirring mind take a back seat for a moment. You'll figure it out, I promise ❤️
❤️
Beautiful.
Excellent advice! Thank you for writing this.
"Dare to be ordinary." I heard these words in my head years ago while walking, and I’m not sure where they came from—perhaps from all the books I’ve read or the reflections I’ve had. But when that voice emerged, the words resonated so deeply that they changed my life. It was as if a tremendous weight I hadn’t even realized I was carrying was suddenly lifted—the weight of inner tyranny.
Paradoxically, it’s only in embracing our ordinariness that the extraordinary reveals itself, for one cannot exist without the other. Since then, little by little, I’ve begun to dare to simply be myself, embracing both the darkness and the light along the way.
I love this letter, and Polly’s response is written so beautifully<3
when you wrote, "Our prayers are also education. Our love is transformative. You tell me about how you feel, and I jump into the river and start writing, and my compassion for you is like a prayer, and your kind words to me are also a prayer, and we’re connected and we bring strength to each other and it matters," and "What I see in you is someone who doesn’t refuse the gifts she’s given. You welcome everything bright and lovely into your heart and treasure it, and you’re humbled by it." woah!!! a part of me felt so incredibly seen reading this that it brought tears to my eyes. this is beautifully written, i can feel your heart and its passion. reading this felt like you placed a warm hand on my cheek and caressed it the way a mother does her child when everything feels crazy and overwhelming. thank you, Heather. good luck to TSR, i hope they are able to take away the beauty and magic of this piece and feel worthy of the incredible life they dream of.
"Let go of this idea you're peculiarly wrong to do the basic things to thrive." Yep, this is me! Ha, with ADHD and depression, I fail myself so many times. Combine that with a disappointed mean and emotionally abusive dad that gets angry and passive aggressive when I fail to do something I promised to do, you have someone with the deep born belief that "happiness doesn't exist" because I don't think I'm capable of doing the basic things to thrive. I feel broken.
But I'm not, anon. Its hard to turn off the commentary in my head, but dude, you're NOT broken. The majority of people who make good art, they just showed up, and they fucked around and they cried a lot. And you're reading this and you might think "but I can't do that. I can't show up consistently, I can't fuck around, I can't try" and Just turn off the commentary. You got a DEGREE in medicine, you're CLEARLY accustomed to hard work, and you downgrade your booksmarts but it takes a lot of trying to study well, do well on tests, etc. All the people with incredible lives you see, you font see the full picture. Maybe one regrets their leap, maybe the others tortured with anxiety, the point is its EXTREMELY likely they're experiencing the same AMBIVALENCR as you. In your warped worldview, you just see this as another point against you "Oh there's still something wrong with me since I can't push past my shame and make these leaps" I shoot the person in your head saying that. That commentary isn't helpful, its not pragmatic or problem-solving, its solely about perpetuating your own shame cycle. Im saying this to myself really, because its very hard to be programtic or problem solving or turn off my own negative inner commentary. But like Polly said, we're all the same. One of my friends who's a great writer also has a job they're not that excited about, struggling with their twenties, etc.
Also give yourself more credit. You got a degree, despite the mental health issues and suicidality and a global pandemic. That gap year doesn't fucking matter, do you know how many people with incredible lives had a gap year or dropped out of college altogether? You got out of it, and that's what matters. I left college two weeks ago, and its possible I've fucked up everything but I made my choice and I'm forgiving myself for it. I was also dealing with anxiety and suicidality because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I repressed my emotions for a year following a major I despised.
Just... its going through the motions. It really is, as Polly reminded me. I always think there's some deep internal aspect of me I need to rely upon, but in reality, so much of motivation, ambition, pleasure, and joy comes from exercise, getting enough sleep, and just listening to your screaming inner baby and doing it anyways. Its humbling. It also means there's less of an excuse not todo the hard work.
As another person going through what you wrote - I'm proud of you. I'm glad you exist and write so truthfully and well! And we'll survive and thrive 💖 much love.
Two things I learned at the end of my twenties:
1) most people are average. By definition, this is obvious, but internalizing it is hard. Most people aren't in first place! They are "mediocre". (and, it's fundamentally anathema to me to think that that means that they don't deserve good things.)
2) your twenties are, as a friend of mine told me with eye-opening casualness, "the doldrums". Mine were decidedly mediocre - sometimes great but a lot of the time miserable in uninteresting average ways - and I'm actually extremely happy with my life right now.
I don't think if those two things are helpful to you now, but they were and are helpful to me later. Basically, you'll be okay.
(Also if you feel bad about yourself all the time, consider talking to your doctor about depression and getting some antidepressants. Possibly I could have put this as #3 on the list of important late twenties discoveries.)
adding to the mediocre thing, people label lack of external success as "mediocre" but like? so what? You can have external success and be miserable because of the way you're put on a pedestal, you lose your public privacy (mediocrity is a blessing when you can go out and get lunch without being stopped by a fan for an autograph. You have to be ON all the time if you gain any big type of fame), or even unrelated to success you have illnesses, money problems, etc. LIFE will always be imperfect anda mixed bag, but that doesn't mean its not incredible. Even one of my friends, an incredibly ambitious person aiming to be a climate activist, involved with clubs, earned competitive internship, wishes to get their PHD, the person LW likely envies? hes burnt out, struggles with anxiety, bit of a workaholic, hes got anxieties about his romance because hr loves the person a Lot but Jes well aware its rare for relationships in early twenties to be permanent, and his life is imperfect in a lot of ways. And you could still call him "mediocre" since he's not at an IVY league university, or he hasn't won awards for fixing some climate change specific problem, but that's the point. The chase for fame and success is inherently worthless. It's about what you love, youre connected to, what makes you feel good. Mediocre people absolutely deserve good things because mediocre people are friends, lovers, siblings, and they're the gears that turn the world. You can't escape the mundaities and drudgery of the world, hahah.
Glad someone else also wants to recommend potential treatment for depression. It’s incredible how different the world feels once that chemical imbalance stops putting its cloudy veil over everything.
Thank you. “We are all the same” is the message I took from here. Strangely, the words reverberating in my thought was a line from an anime, “one for all and all for one”, and I understood this differently in another light today. I understood in a manner I never had before.
I also want to add Michel Foucault’s wisdom: he said that if a lamp can be an object of art, why cannot my life be one? He was a believer that in our life, we don’t find ourselves: there is no our original self. The be “me”. He wanted us to create ourselves. The delusion that you have to be somebody you original are, as if you already exist in a plane unknown to you. He found that quite, not right. And I think you echo these thoughts: create yourself. You are what you think you are; your thoughts that you believe in right are only but thoughts that you believe in yourself at this time. Create yourself. Change. Change to whom you want the most to be.
~ "if a lamp cam be an object or art, why cannot my life b one!" Wow, I think this really expanded my definition of being. Thank you!
<3 Trying is happiness <3 I empathize with the LW as I had a similar experience in my early 20’s in a competitive medical program. I failed out and it took a long time to forgive myself but I had to admit how hard it was with panic attacks, depression, adhd? and little support - I was alone because of the shame. If you had told me it would be 7 years of straight misery I prob would have not held on. I’m grateful I did because my life is not what I imagined it would be and 23 year old me lacked imagination. My world is big and I’ve been able to travel but I’m happy to be under the covers with a book and warm cup of coffee. I’m a nurse so I still long for a dream gone but I’m glad to be in the hospital and to be good at what I do. I’m happy to be alive and it’s hard to feel this way if you’re constantly in the past (regret) and in the future (anxiety). Heal your body, be gentle with your soul and know that 24 is young. Old is 90 honestly. Too late is when you’re dead.
Also I think we should rethink of our 20’s as the time to deprogram from whatever our childhood conditioning was. Take what worked and admit that raising someone is an impossible task when we are all too different and need different things. Even if your upbringing was not traumatic, you still need to commit to the kind of person you want to be. Don’t go it alone, love and be loved too!
Well this letter was exactly perfect for me right now. Like the LW I am a recovering overachiever in a transition phase, trying to figure out what to do with my weird career choices. Thank you both, LW and Polly!
The advice to try over and over again, and that it's always hard, and that it's always a prayer, and that feeling your suffering prepares you for the work--yes. Yes yes yes.
Me too. We are many.
Lately it feels as if every post was made just for me; a tender solvent to the exact twisted, aching wound that is calling out most fervently, an answered prayer to what my heart whispers for most… I’m sure I’m not alone in this feeling, and that is a big part of the healing magic in these posts… The reminder that we are all, truly, equal. In our darkest sufferings and our deepest desires.. what a relief ♥️
Dear TSR and Polly- thank you both for your courage and vulnerability in writing these words- exactly the words I needed to read this morning. My stuck-in-the-middle-of-drivel-and-drudgery self feels grateful to be alive right now, connected to you and everyone and every unspecial/special speck of stardust and grain of sand. Jumping into the river and seeing where it takes me today…
Some days I look at my creative work and say, wow! Other days I look and say failure, failure failure. Likewise the news, the world, and everything in it is amazing, other times I am uninspired. I am confident that humans have not really explored our psyches' yet. But it helps to look at our brain activity, our spirits and our bodies as if we are studying the weather, seasonal cycles and the patterns to changes in the universe. As others have said, see a doctor if this is something long term and share with them that your brain is not cooperating and dashing your hopes. Be gentle, and do not push yourself to do anything. Wait and see and be patient. Start small, do I feel like standing or laying down? Do I feel an impulse to roll around? Going back to infancy explore the light between your fingers, make goofy noises, hum. Little by little as you feel freed stuff will start to emerge. This letter and Heather's letter both have saved me from all the same complaints today. Everything looked like crap. I started writing and became surprised by what emerged.
“Happiness is just about trying”. These are WORDS TO LIVE BY!!! Thank you❤️💯
Ohhhhh how this letter and this answer spoke to my soul today! Thank you!
Thank you. This is what I needed to read today. What a gift.
Being bigger, daring for more, is what will give you the capacity to spread love in this world, which is something you were born to do. Thank you 🙏
This hit different