The summer after freshman year, my self esteem really went down the drain. All of my friends left for amazing jobs or cool internships, but I moved back home for a month. I developed a nasty habit of scrolling through Instagram all day, specifically looking at girls who I thought were prettier than me, for no reason except to remind myself that I don’t measure up. I also spent a lot of time reflecting on my academic year, staring at my GPA on Wolverine Access, willing it to change, hoping nobody ever found out how low it was. All of my friends were had higher grades than me in harder classes, and it just sucked. I was so sick of feeling like I didn’t measure up. Everything hit me at once when I received a rejection email in July for a program I’d applied for. I don’t think I’ve ever cried so hard. I just felt humiliated. I would never be good enough.
Yet, to the outside world, I probably looked like I was thriving. I was taking so many cute pictures with my friends that I actually struggled to limit myself to one Instagram post a day. A few of my articles got published on national platforms, so my Facebook page made me look super studious and academic.
I decided to conduct an experiment. What is it actually like to be one of the girls I compared myself to? I always felt like I was the only one who was insufficient–the only one who didn’t have it together. But if I felt this way, and yet to the outside world looked like I had it together, then what are the chances that everyone feels this way? What if nobody actually has it together?
Luckily, I found some pretty amazing girls who are willing to put themselves out there and share their stories for you, just to show you that nobody really has it together. Spoiler: I was right. Everyone has failed. Everyone has experienced that feeling of not being good enough. Literally everyone.
Anna
Anna lived pretty much everyone’s dream by taking a gap year after high school and getting an internship and volunteer position in Uganda. She says, “people think my time in Uganda was smooth and vibrant and amazing. Don’t get me wrong, it was amazing and I can’t wait to go back, but people don’t know how hard it was for me. I found myself dwelling on my failures at the end of the day, and questioning my role there. I felt like I had travelled across the world and I was failing myself. I was letting those around me down by not being enough. I had wanted this gap year for years and now that I was here, I was fulfilled but not without anxiet
Based on her social media, I never would have guessed that Anna had any troubles in Uganda. I would have just seen that while I was watching Netflix and relaxing in the comfort of my own home, she was across the world volunteering. But despite her struggles, Anna says, “I’m now more grateful for this experience than I had ever anticipated. I learned to allow myself to be weak. I learned to let myself be human. People usually don’t know just how much I struggled personally in Uganda; they only see the joyful parts. I know, though, and always have, that my months there were worth every doubt and every tear.”
That’s the thing about failure: not only is it inevitable, but it’s necessary. It sounds cheesy, but if we don’t put ourselves out there, we will never grow and learn.
Shannon
Shannon’s summer job was one of the most challenging jobs you can imagine, and she handled it in a way that makes all of us look badly. She explains it by saying, “I spent my summer at a sleepaway camp for kids with social, behavioral, and emotional difficulties. While I was there, I was an absolute god. I could deescalate (calm kids down when they’re upset) in minutes. I prevented kids from killing themselves, and was punched in the chest and yelled at, but in every situation I stayed calm and put together. I had kids tell me every session how I made an impact on them, I won a lot of awards at the camp, was offered an administrator position for next summer, and left feeling incredibly accomplished.”
When I heard about Shannon’s summer, I figured that she would go through the next school year feeling like she could conquer anything. After all, she’d accomplished more difficult and meaningful work than any of us ever could. But she says, “when I got back here I felt like crap. All of a sudden I went from being one of the best to one of the worst. To make matters worse, I found that it was hard to focus. I started to receive worse and worse grades, and my anxiety just kept rising. I saw other people who were doing so much more with their time and energy, and couldn’t help but feel as if I was missing something. My accomplishments at camp no longer mattered and when I was back here, I hadn’t really accomplished anything. I felt as if the two worlds were separated and I hated how that the one I was currently in made me feel so horrible. I was a failure.”
How does Shannon deal with these feelings of inadequacy? “I’ve accepted that it’s something I’m going to have to deal with for the rest of my time here. But I don’t have to suffocate in it. I started reminding myself of things I have accomplished here. I work incredibly hard to not compare myself to others, and to remind myself that almost everyone feels inadequate. It’s a long process, and one I’m going to have to keep up with for a long time, but I know that every day I feel a bit better than I did in the past.”
Caylin
As a sophomore who’s still not entirely decided when it comes to a major, Caylin seems to have everything I’ve ever wanted: “I started freshman year a little bit lost, like everyone else, but within the first few weeks of school I felt like I had a direction. I went to a premiere showing of the film ‘Before the Flood’, an environmental documentary by Leonardo DiCaprio. The movie was incredibly powerful. I practically cried in the East Quad theater surrounded by people who cared about the same things that I did. Afterwards, I got my reusable bag and plastic sustainable built spork and thought, this is where I belong. It was only the second or third week of college, and I knew that I wanted to major in Program in the Environment. It was magical. I felt so put-together and prepared. People in college are constantly asking you about your major. Having an answer was so reassuring.”
But I guess nobody can ride that kind of high forever. “Around that time, I was at a student org. meeting and we did the classic icebreaker where you say your name, year, and major. I said Program in the Environment so confidently that afterwards, one of the sophomores came up to talk to me. She asked me a bit incredulously, ‘how do you know already? You’ve only been here a few weeks and I’m on my second year and still don’t know.’ I told her something ridiculous about how when you know, you just know. But here’s the thing: I don’t think I know anymore. It’s the end of my first semester of sophomore year and I am considering changing my major. I don’t know if PitE is the most natural fit for me anymore. It’s terrifying and incredibly daunting. I fooled everyone last year into thinking I knew exactly what was I doing, I even fooled myself.”
I think that it’s always worse when other people know about the ways you feel like you failed yourself. But Caylin assured me that it’s not that bad. She says, “we are all living in this crazy wild world without any sort of direction and none of our paths will be the same. There is no linear path for us to follow. I am not exactly sure what I am going to study, but somehow I’ll figure it out. We all do one day at a time.”
Isabella
Isabella is one of those people who seems to have everything going for her. Since she was homeschooled, she was heavily involved in the arts since childhood. She says, “in high school, I was confident about my artistic and academic abilities. I spent two years in a Graphic Communications career center during high school and during the winter of 2016, I created a 24-page fashion magazine. I wrote all of the pieces, did the graphic design and photography front to back. I won Best of Show my senior year, and even once I got to U of M, I was on the Dean’s List in Stamps fall semester.”
But, as many of us have realized, U of M can really take any confidence you have in your abilities and tear it to shreds. Turns out, that even happens to people like Isabella. “In art school, it’s extremely hard not to compare yourself to others. Instead of traditional paper tests or exams, the art school has critiques. These can last hours and require you to be very attentive and have the ability to give critical feedback to your peers. For my drawing, I was given some feedback by my classmates (nothing too harsh) and then I explained my intentions, which is the process of critique. My professor then looked at me and said, ‘I don’t think you understood the assignment.’ There are many things I apparently didn’t do correctly that I should have. My face turned beat red and I started sweating like crazy. I had worked on this for weeks. She said I had the chance to redo it. This was the day before I was supposed to leave for Christmas break… how the hell was I supposed to redo a whole final in one night?”
When faced with a failure, what can you do except bounce back? “Guess who redid their final the whole next day and all night?” says Isabella. “It felt awful and humiliating, but that’s life. If you do everything right and are never given negative feedback, how do you grow? I grew tremendously as an artist, and I thank my Drawing I teacher for equipping me with the skills I wasn’t confident in beforehand.”
Images courtesy of: Hannah Harshe