University will be the time of your life. You will meet your soulmate and best friends, you
will develop key skills and gain irreplaceable experiences and most importantly, truly
find yourself.
But that didn’t happen.
In the economically unstable, political hellscape of 2026, where having a degree barely
guarantees a liveable wage, most young people are more concerned with the dwindling
prospect of ever owning a house, much less with finding themselves. Despite this, the
world around us seems to expect us to be having the time of our lives, and constantly
remind us that it only gets worse once you graduate. I personally find it torturous. I hate
hearing from my parents how much fun and freedom and friendship they enjoyed during
their university years, how it was the very best time of their lives. I can’t help but deeply
hope that’s not true for me. If this is the best time of my life, then the rest of my life is
going to truly suck.
If you can relate to this then you are not alone. After 3 years of university life, I have
enjoyed a variety of amazing new experiences, have made memories that I will treasure
forever and have gained skills that will help me for life, but it hasn’t come without the
fair share of hardship. As the end of the final year of my degree comes creeping closer, I
have found myself filled with a confusing slurry of emotions ranging regret, fear,
excitement, discomfort, longing, dissatisfaction and anxiety. About how I have wasted
my uni life, about the mistakes I’ve made, about how things could have gone if only I
hadn’t, about the ways I’ve regressed and that teenage me would be so disappointed,
about my lost spark, wasted potential, and total apathy about all the things that used to
bring me joy. Mitski warned me about becoming a tall child but I didn’t realise just how
real that would feel. I am a worse version of myself. Riddled with the same insecurities
and personal flaws of my teenage self, coupled beautifully with my aging body, and
deteriorating mental health. Life is just peachy.
There is no advice, or catchy hot take in this article. My aim is to share my feelings and
reach anyone else who may feel the same. You are not alone.
I for one feel like despite everything I’ve learnt and achieved so far, I’ve also lost a lot. I
feel burnt out from years upon years of academics, and I’ve gotten no better at dealing
with big coursework assignments and surviving exam season, if anything I’ve gotten
worse. During my GCSEs, my parents said 1 year of hard work then you’re done, then it
was come on, 2 years of focus and hard work for your A levels then you’re done. Now It
feels all the heavier, 4 long years, with no obvious goal in sight anymore, no obvious next
step. Somehow knowing, or being constantly told that the world is my oyster makes it all
the harder to actually see myself being happy doing anything. I’ve gone totally numb But
where my academic prowess may have waned, my sense of self and mental health have
improved.
Well no. I find I’m more unsatisfied, angry and emotional than ever. I cry more now, a lot
of people I’ve talked to say they cry more into their 20s. Somewhere deep down I can’t
help but feel like I’ve totally failed, in every aspect of life. I read less, follow the news and
current affairs less, I have less friends and I am much more sensitive and emotionally
volatile now. I have less hobbies, less passion, I do less extra-curriculars and have less
motivation to create art. This very article I’ve been thinking about writing for weeks is
being written literal minutes before (and now after) the deadline as I’ve put it off for days
in a total paralysis. My body feels heavier, older, already slowly decaying, my dark
circles darker, my insecurities more suffocating. The worst part is that it all comes
crashing in on itself; cannibalising and self-multiplying. The more I feel like a failure, the
less I want to try to better myself, to achieve anything, to get stuck into anything, to
escape. I tell myself, you’re 22, it’s past too late. I want to tell you dear reader, it gets
better. Right now I don’t know if I can say that. Although I still believe it might. I’m back
in therapy, I’m closer to some of my friends than I’ve ever been, and even in my final year
of university, I have gotten opportunities and made memories I truly will treasure that
never thought I’d make. Perhaps I just need to let go of the FOMO, of the constant
comparisons, it’s fine if my memories revolve around tv shows and food and walks in
the park instead of extravagant holidays, and true love, and parties, and academic
success. It’s so much easier said than done.
I feel like I am already dead, and I will drift through life aimlessly, rotting in a dead end
job, bringing myself some transient inklings of joy when I order take out or watch a movie
I like. I’ll live alone, and just decay. It feels so inevitable now. I don’t know how else to
explain it. A sinking feeling. A dark inevitability. A part of me has already died and her
corpse will go on, performing the motions of life without ever truly living it. Without ever
being happy. I’m simultaneously so afraid of it, yet it also already feels so true.
I can’t drive, I didn’t meet the love of my life, I am just as mentally unstable as I was at
16, I have no job prospects and a Masters in STEM I’ve grown to hate means less and
less as time goes on. But I have reached you, in some small part. You took time to read
my small rant and maybe felt seen, and in this moment, I am grateful for that. I’m sorry
dad, that I don’t do sports and go on holidays with my friends and don’t have a boyfriend
to “take care of me”, I’m sorry mum that I am in many ways more broken now than I ever
was before. Perhaps I simply hid it better, perhaps it’s been bubbling underneath for too
long. I’m sorry to my younger sister, for not being a better role model, for not filling you
with excitement and joy about adulthood and university life. I’m sorry to my wide-eyed,
over-achieving 17 year old self, for letting you down. As I think about my university life
coming to an end, all of my fears are constantly crashing down. I feel so often these
days that I can’t take it anymore. But maybe that’s okay, as painful as it is. No, University
was not my peak, but an important learning journey. But maybe my framing is wrong. It’s
not about whether or not I’m in my peak, maybe social media forces me to compare
myself to 15 year old celebrities and savants too much and society’s obsession with
nostalgia, and lost potential creates a weight that is dragging me down to the pits of
hell. I should just take every day as it comes. Just live.
Maybe one day I will.