despite loving my career, my home, my friends and family, i have this punishing daily thought that wreaks havoc on my mental health: “i’m almost my best self, just not quite yet.” i often think there’s more i have to accomplish, more i need to earn, places i need to go, and people i need to meet. i haven’t fallen in love, i haven’t bought a home, i haven’t been to amsterdam. on days when i’m not feeling so self-critical, i look around and see that i’ve already made it. i’m here, it’s happened — twenty-year-old me would have been thrilled. but then it comes again — and i know i am not the only one — that panicked feeling that i — that
we — are not enough.in her new book
an ordinary age: finding your way in a world that expects exceptional, writer rainesford stauffer calls that daily thinking a “myth” that only ever results in feeling less than. she writes, “if you’re a young adult today (or even just know a young adult today), it’s a challenge not to feel as though finding yourself has been turned into a competitive sport. now, it seems, striving to be extraordinary, being exceptional, and being special are the same as being capable, being fulfilled, and being happy.”she continues, “we have so-called dream jobs and side hustles just to try to pay the bills, college rankings that tell us where our formative years fall on the scale of public opinion, and which education is supposedly worth all the debt. omnipresent illustrations of best lives, bodies, and selves constantly play out on instagram, and the churn of perfectionism has radically amped up expectations that turn ‘perfect’ into a theoretically meetable standard.”stauffer also says there are new timelines for entering young adulthood, and that “what it means to be a fulfilled young person is being rethought in real time. but the myth of a best self, and a best life, following certain patterns and meeting certain benchmarks, remains.”all of that has only been heightened during the covid-19 pandemic, where more people than ever are feeling depressed, anxious and lonely, when so many have seen their education, social lives and work interrupted and many are left to wonder what it is they really want in life and when (e.g. children, property, marriage) — all while facing a global racial reckoning and rising death rates.
and then there’s social media in addition, there’s social media to regularly remind us we don’t have the seemingly exciting lives of others that have been curated for our viewing pleasure. even self care is a commoditized industry that’s more about finding a “fix” than finding peace. not to mention the fact that we’re only days into the 2020 olympics, possibly the biggest world event that is entirely hinged on winning. athletes like naomi osaka, simone biles, teddy riner and andre de grasse are the faces, and there’s nothing they like to talk about more than how they want to be the best in the world at what they do, how they’ve been working at it since they were children and how extraordinary is the only way. it’s become the theme of the summer.we are also in an all new age of anxiety that’s taking no prisoners. i know i’m not the only one who was continuously told to “get productive” during the last year and a half while barely able to get out of bed on most days. and nothing makes you feel lazier than seeing osaka nail another competition at only 23 years old. but that’s exactly the issue, posits stauffer: so many of these things are what we’ve been told to want and strive for, which then has us tying our sense of selves to our achievements. and that has become an unhealthy distraction from and dilution of the good of our present lives.it reminds me of the many friends i have who refuse to date simply because they don’t feel they’re presentable
yet. they just need the job and the body — both of which never come because the benchmark keeps shifting — to get the girl. or those friends who live at home because that’s the cultural expectation, but feel that until they move out, they’re not an adult, even if their benchmarks are totally different. why won’t they give themselves a break, i wonder, as i refuse to give myself even a smidge of one.“for years, i lived my life in afters,” writes stauffer, touching on this troubling notion that traps us in a cycle of “self-improvement” which only limits our self-esteem and optimism. “after i made myself into a perfect person — no insecurities or hang-ups — i’d be worthy of love. after i proved i could do it — whatever it was — i’d be fulfilled. it’s not hard to see how slippery this could get, the sensation that once you’ve found the perfect home, secured the perfect job, locked down the perfect and unshakeable sense of security, and found the perfect circle of friends, ‘real life’ will begin.”the key reason this is harmful thinking, she says, is because the mere concept of extraordinary is inequitable, and yet still, a standard we are all subjected to. when you’re facing racial or financial barriers, struggling to pay rent or find a job, juggling work and children, or when you grow up in a culture or community that has different traditions, “extraordinary” is not so easy. still, without the drive to exceed the ordinary, we wouldn’t have the people we look up to, from olympians to scientists to ceos. if that’s your path, that’s your path. but it isn’t for the majority. plus, it’s really exhausting. so what if we simply aimed for ordinary?it’s a corny proposition to be sure. but it’s certainly a healthier one. in those moments where there is quiet and only my thoughts, i see it the way stauffer does when she writes, “as scary as it sounds, asking myself:
what if this is all you are? it brings me solace.” but how do we all get there? by not restricting ourselves to any “prescribed paths,” she says, and soaking in the how and the why, and seeing how much more valuable those factors are than what we actually decide to do or become. because while those goals may never materialize the way we hope, the journey there will be unique and something worth examining.really, it’s not so much about choosing to find joy in the ordinary over the extraordinary, but to recognize that where you are is
enough. that’s not an easy realization to come to. as stauffer writes, “growing up feels like a weird form of grief; grieving what could’ve worked out, and what didn’t; grief for who or what you tangibly lost; grief for what could’ve been. i wished i’d had a roadmap on how to grow into myself: how to take opportunities without chasing what i thought i was supposed to want…how you don’t have to know everything – including about yourself – to be worthy, to be valid.”while
an ordinary age is worth a read, neither it, nor this essay, is a cure. they’re just reminders that while re-circuiting your path — or setting fire to it entirely — is not an easy proposition, there is a tremendous freedom to it.
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