Do you feel or have you ever felt "behind" your peers? If so, in what way, and how are/did you catching/get caught back up?

This is a rather common sentiment…one I’ve hand many times myself. Let me tell ya about one such little incident.

Back in high school, I was the Arts person. I could draw a prizewinner in two days. I could write a contest winner in a week. I sang the National Anthem for every basketball game. I was the top unofficial American Literature tutor. And then she came. A short, 100% Italian girl.

She won second place in the sketch contests…and then first. Me? I’m miffed. How dare she! The season of the short story contests comes by…short story contests with a twenty page, page limit. Me? I entered. Her? Her story was to long. Me? Evil laughter…until I realized it. She had gone beyond the limit. Her story had exceeded the contest level while mine lagged at the expected level. Disgusting. I blamed her for it too. This girl also managed to scale her way to the top of the choir activities…

Later, I realized my competitive spirit was rash and only hurtful to me. I became friends with the girl. We critiqued the other’s work. I learned a lot from that and the girl herself. Having her in my high school life provided a standard to measure by. She helped me to recognize and tackle my weak points. Best yet, I still have the relationship and the free coaching today.

Don’t think day by day. Think month by month. Don’t dwell on what appears impossible. See what you are learning daily from the experience and grasp that, use that in your quest to move in life. Don’t shy away from your peers, learn from them and imitate their successful strategies. Oh yes, and grasp every opportunity that comes your way…no matter how wild and irrational it may seem.

Correction: “This is a rather common sentiment…one I’ve had many times myself. Let me tell ya about one little incident:”

Ironically, the thing that friend and I are working on now is spelling. Ha ha.

You have to understand that you are your own person, and you can only judge yourself on your own terms. Comparing yourself to others in the way you are is irrelevant, and flawed. You are comparing yourself to the personas that others show to you, not the person they are on the inside. You are aware of your flaws and anxieties, but you aren’t accounting for those that all people feel about themselves. Some might look at the fact that you spent a year abroad and say to themselves, “dang, I wish I had done something fun like that before getting stuck in this life.” Lift yourself up and appreciate that you are just following your own path, which may never resemble that of your peers. If cars, clothes and restaurants are essential to belonging in your peer group, you might be happier finding some new peers.

Can’t find a career? Welcome to the club. This is possibly the most common problem in the western world. Even those who have careers are constantly second-guessing themselves. Sure, everything is competitive, but absolutely anyone can succeed in any career if they can become passionate about it. I’ll bet a good number of your friends are not at all satisfied with their jobs, despite their ability to buy cars. You’d be a million miles “ahead” of them if you found a path you could love.

In the end, it’s just useless to allow others to make you feel bad about yourself. You dictate your own feelings, get hold of them and pursue what you want to do. Remember: “sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself. ”

The grass is always greener on the other side, but once you get there you have to mow it.

“They” are not living perfect lives any more than you are living a perfectly awful life. Someone (I don’t recall who) said the worst form of self-abuse is comparison. Be your own person, walk your own path. I believe the 12-steppers say “work your own program.” You may find you don’t want their cars, clothes, hobbies, dinners…

Yes! And I know a few others who feel this way.

I went to a prestigious educational camp for overachieving high school students. That was years ago. Now, I’m far from an overachiever. It’s difficult for me to watch my friends gain success in their chosen fields when I’m still struggling to finish my degree. But I know that I will work things out in my own time. I’m in no rush to grow up completely. And I’m experiencing things that those overachievers may have never had the chance to, such as stopping to smell the flowers once in a while.

I guess that my way of feeling better about myself is to count my blessings and consider that maybe pursuing happiness is more important than pursuing success (at least for right now).

@shadling21 [Insert applause here]. Good and well written point! +GA.

@Spinel Thanks! Right back at you!

For one I’m a year behind most of my classmates due to dropping out of college so I feel like I have to prove I am not a failure just because I failed once. And being a transfer and commuter finding friends has been even harder than I thought. I feel everyone has a group of friends and I’m alone on an island by myself. I can’t even bear to go to facebook anymore because I feel so behind everyone else. It’s also hard to get people to understand I don’t drive because I physically can’t, which is hard when everyone else lives on campus or has a car. And because I changed my major late I feel like I’m not as good as everyone else in my classes, who are often freshman, when I’m a junior. I know they probably don’t care but I still feel below them.

It’s always been about how much money I make. Everyone else seems to be doctors and lawyers and professors. I don’t even make half of what they make. When I look at their accomplishments in the alumni magazine, it is always some great honor in their field, or some great business success, or a big donation to whatever.

I tell myself that people only send in accomplishments if they have them, and that there are 500 other people who don’t have anything to send in. However, I have no idea what they are doing, and it seems like sending in my accomplishments would be laughable compared to theirs. So I never have anything to say for the alumni magazine, and I almost never have anything to say on Facebook.

It’s only here, where I can compete to be the most pathetic, that I feel like I have any chance of success. Naw. I’m kidding. But to be serious for a moment about that. Maybe five or ten people have gone out of their way, it seems to me, to tell me that they like what I say, in general (I think), or that they think I’m a good writer. This is nice, but I have no way of comparing it to the larger world, where I would love to have success.

Which says, I guess, that there really is no way to know how you compare to anyone. The only thing you can compare to is your goals. By that measure, since my goals are unrealistically high, and I can’t seem to let go of them, I always seem to be a failure. Well, maybe I am beginning to be able to let go of them, but it’s hard. I don’t want to feel like a failure, and I think the feeling isn’t real (other people tell me it isn’t). I think it’s just a part of my psychology and is related to bad brain chemistry more than reality (whatever that is)

Still, it’s lurking there and it comes back from time to time, and sometimes it isn’t easy to tell it to shut the fuck up. Not that I do that. I’m always polite to those nasty voices in my head. Not real imaginary voices—just metaphorical voices. Self-talk, I think it’s called. So it lurks, and I haven’t captured and caged it, nor killed it. So it goes.

Objectively, I’m about 20 years behind the times in computer skills. I allowed this to happen due to lack of interest and being in a position where I could delegate almost all computer-related tasks to others. Now I find myself in a position of having to learn skills at age 53 that most nine year olds have mastered.

I have Aspergers Syndrome, born with it, incurable and, at my age, untreatable. I will always be at a disadvantage in social situations. Something that I have learned to live with. I avoid purely social situations F2F and in mixed situations I stick to the formal or technical side of things. It may seem cold to others, but it is a viable survival strategy for me. I “ignore” social cues rather than risk misreading them. More so now, as I no longer have a social “translator”.

My other feelings of inferiority are constructs of grief and depression. They are more a matter of self-confidence that I have to regain rather than objective deficiencies.

@Everyone. The problem is not just that I’m second-guessing my career, but that I really can’t find anything to commit to. There are multiple avenues I’ve been considering (law, teaching, marketing, sales, management) but all of those seem like they’re on the decline, and/or getting more competitive. The same deal with graduate school. I even went to an Ivy League school—not that that should guarantee anything, but you’d think that would help (I did major in history, however, so perhaps that explains it). So I can’t figure out what to do at all. Am I just relegated to loserdom?

@mirifique Of course you’re not! You’re only a failure when you choose to sit down on the park bench and never get up again.

Might I suggest one of those “choose-a-career-based-on-your-personality” tests? Many quality ones are found on the web. Keep in mind, these tests aren’t divine guides, just educated suggestions. But what is there to lose considering the point you’re at?

For sure i have felt these things, and for me i have found that
The most vital experience in life is discovering who you are,
seems to fill in all of the blanks and bring about a balance…,
When i was born, was put in a cardboard box and abandoned.
Even though i was adopted and taken care of, somehow i didn’t feel “real or complete”.
Even college didn’t fill in the missing feeling of completeness.
After eventually going through a few religions and not finding what i seemed to be missing, i went to india and spent some time with some spiritual teachers.
Simply put, i found the truth of the universe and who i was and where i fit into this world that i live in, all within myself…,and then seeing that i had to go nowhere at all to find this truth, and that this truth was with me wherever i went, and was within everyone else as well…,
...,well, it wasn’t until that moment that everything felt right.
...,now i’m not pushing anything on anyone…, it’s just my story i’m sharing with you.

..