Being a young adult in college is something that is meant to be empowering, and it is. This is the very first time many of us are fully independent. No more having to listen to our parents for everything, no more curfews, no more rules. But there are still rules, obviously. Rules we didn’t even know that were
rules and so many lessons. We are also trying new things, meeting new people, and slowly becoming the kind of people we want to be.
When going into college, we are told that school is supposed to get us further and more ahead in life. We are taught that if we work hard enough, everything will fall perfectly into place.
However, it is incredibly common to be going about our day, scrolling through Instagram and seeing people from high school getting engaged, landing amazing full-time jobs, seemingly having their entire lives together, hitting these amazing milestones that you can’t even imagine hitting long before they can even get a hotel room for themselves. Just last week, I saw someone my age post about becoming a homeowner, and honestly, it can feel exhausting constantly seeing people who seem so much more ahead than you.
You may think, “They were exactly where I was, so how are we so different? Am I not where I’m supposed to be?” Your own brain is not your friend in moments like those. It’s hard not to compare yourself when it feels like everyone around you has their life figured out already.
It is okay to admit that feelings like jealousy, sadness, frustration, or insecurity exist. You went to school. You worked hard. While you are at school, seemingly wasting time, people are getting further ahead than you. Part of you probably thinks, “That should be me.” You may feel like you are supposed to be ahead of everyone else, but that’s not always the case. That’s not the reality.
This is an incredibly normal feeling at our age.
Even though I am not perfect at not comparing myself, I have gotten much better at it over time, and there are a few things I try to remind myself of.
First, nobody truly has everything figured out. If someone says they do, they are probably lying. “Figuring it out” is something that takes time, growth, and experience. It changes constantly, sometimes daily.
Failure is not something to be afraid of, even though that is much easier said than done. The more you fail, the less scary it becomes, and eventually you’ll see that failure is simply part of the process.
Think about someone you consider successful. They have probably failed countless times to get where they are now. The couple that seems perfectly happy probably fought through difficult times to get there. The person who bought a house probably heard “no” from jobs, applications, or opportunities before getting where they want to be.
It’s important to recognize that failure pushes people forward.
You have to reframe the way you view it. If you want to succeed at anything, failure is something that may come with it, and it’s necessary. Every mistake teaches you something. If you failed in a relationship,
maybe you learned what you need from a partner or how you want to show up better in the future. If you failed a class, maybe you learned how to manage your time differently or how to ask for help sooner.
Whenever you fail, it sucks. It really does. But eventually you realize, “Okay, I survived. I know what to do differently next time.”
Mistakes are important because they build perseverance, adaptability, and humility. It seems like in order to be productive, it involves planning every little detail of life. However, learning how to adapt in situations is just as important. Nothing teaches adaptability and being able to roll with the punches better than failure does.
Another important thing to remember during college is to stop trying so hard to fit in.
It is so easy to look at large friend groups and think, “Wow, I want that.” A lot of people feel a sense of loneliness when they don’t have that huge social circle, but having a small group of genuine people around you is far more valuable than constantly having to force yourself into spaces where you do not feel as if you fully belong.
It is not always easy to be your authentic self in group settings because wanting acceptance is just in human nature. However, you should never have to change who you are just to be liked by someone else.
It is more important to surround yourself with people who truly accept you than to constantly try to mold yourself into someone that you are not. Try to become a source of your own happiness rather than relying entirely on other people to create it for you.
I once heard someone say that you become the average of the five people you spend the most time around. Whether that is completely true or not, there is still something important within that idea. Surround yourself with those you are proud to grow alongside, not people who make you feel like you have to dull your sparkle.
Another thing is that social media makes us forget that everyone’s timeline looks different.
Some people graduate “on time” and still feel completely lost afterward. Some people take gap years, switch majors three times, move back home, or start over. None of that means that they have failed.
Social media makes it incredibly easy to compare your everyday life to someone’s highlight reel. People post the promotion, the apartment, the engagement, the wedding photos, and the new house. They usually do not post the anxiety, the debt, the loneliness, the failure, or the uncertainty behind those moments.
Just because someone reached a milestone before you does not mean your moment will never come.
Life is not a race where the first person to hit a milestone wins. Some milestones take years to reach, and some are not even meant for everyone. That is okay!
At the end of the day, there is no perfect timeline. You are not failing because your journey looks different from a stranger you saw online, or even someone you went to high school with. College is about growth. It’s about becoming who you want to be, someone you want to be proud of. It’s about learning from your mistakes and slowly figuring it out.
You are allowed to feel lost. You are allowed to change your mind as many times as you need to. You are allowed to take longer than someone else. Someone else’s timeline does not determine what yours should look like.
I once saw a TikTok comment that said, “Whenever I am stressed that I do not have my life figured out, I remember that I am the first woman in my family who doesn’t have her entire life decided for her.”
For generations, many women did not have the freedom to choose the lives they wanted. Now we do. We have the opportunity to make decisions for ourselves, and decisions are difficult. It is overwhelmingly hard trying to figure out the “correct” path when there are thousands of possibilities in front of you.
Give yourself some grace. Take a deep breath. Go about your day. Trust that things will eventually fall into place the way they are supposed to.
We do not need to create strict timelines and deadlines for every part of our lives. We are never going to be fully in control of everything, and we have to trust that there is a bigger picture we simply cannot see yet.
You are not behind. You are exactly where you are supposed to be.