Okay, so in high school I was the really smart successful guy with killer grades and scores and I made it to Harvard. That was half a lifetime ago and it was my biggest accomplishment. Since then it all fell apart.
I was depressed in college and not very motivated b/c of unresolved personal health issues. I didn't try hard and got bad grades. Then I started a dot-com company and did that for 13 years. It made a nice salary but it finally ended in a lawsuit that emptied my bank account. Yep, 13 years of work and I'm back to zero. Now I have no advanced degree, no career history, no professional job experience, no capital to start over, and I'm old.
Here's the bad part: my Harvard friends are rich. One was in early at Google. Two others are ibankers. They complain about six-figure bonuses (b/c they are used to seven) not realizing I am broke. Of my friends from high-school one owns a dental practice ($400k/year), one works at a hedge fund ($500k/yr), and one is a radiologist ($800k/year). Then there's a pediatrician, a corporate lawyer, etc. who make around $200k. And there are the tenured college professors who aren't rich but have total job security. None of these people will ever worry about their career future. Meantime I don't have one.
Now I am finding I hate these people. They didn't suffer with my health issues and so they sailed ahead while I floundered and failed. The Harvard people were just too smart for me. But I was smarter than the high school friends. The radiologist I actually tutored through high school physics. The hedge fund guy copied my chemistry homework. You get the idea. I feel that b/c of my personal problems which weren't my fault I could not attain my potential. I could be where they were if not for those issues.
These friends don't know my story and they keep trying to get in touch. They expect I must be equally successful as them. I don't want to talk to any of them anymore b/c I am too envious of their success. They have careers, advanced degrees, families, money, and future. I don't have any. I cannot afford to join them on their fancy vacations. I am tired of pretending to be happy that they made partner or bought a mansion. I honestly can't stand hearing anything more about their successes and I don't even respect what some of them do (Wall Street parasites in particular).
I guess I just feel that I fucked up the big opportunity that was given to me when I was 18. Harvard was the keys to the kingdom but I didn't use them. The dot-com had a chance to get big but I blundered it. I am worse than most losers b/c I had so many more chances, and so much more ability, than most people will ever have. And it all went to nothing. Plus, my health is just worse. I am thinking I should just hurry up and die. | |
Maybe those problems are supposed to lead you to a different potential. Down a different path. Just think about it.
you are smart enough to find another way!
instead of thinking about your failures, you can think about how to start again.
be sure u are smart and u know it yourself;
the only thing u need is: TRYING AGAIN
I was a wreck in college (not an ivy league, but a private school) and wound up screwing it up. I wound up going back to a state school after working shitty jobs for 2 years and realizing that it was MY CHOICE to move forward or stay procrastinating. Granted, now that I'm done I'm finding that the job market is all around shit, so I'm doing whatever jobs I can stand to do that can pay me SOMETHING. Am I rich now? Fuck no. And yeah, my best friend is making killer money in his field of choice, although even back in college he was amazing. I don't compare myself to him and think I'm a failure, I'm just glad that I know some successful people and that I play a role in their lives.
It's easy to stay down after losing a lot but holy shit man, I think you have a lot more success left in you than you want to admit, since it takes a lot of bad choices and denial to become an unsuccessful Harvard grad.
just remember that people a lot less intelligent than yourself have been successful..the idiot colonol sanders started his chicken empire at age 60...
you have plenty of time to get your life right..you are not old by any means yet..
stop comparing yourself to others and follow your own path..
when i started a business once, a guy told me this,'don't worry about what the restaurant across the street is doing, worry about your own restaurant and it will work out'
he was right..and now i am telling you to focus on yourself, not your ex friends..
one step at a time..peace and love and good luck to you..
I also blame myself for bad decisions and sort of live over and over again the moments I took the wrong decisions and that is killing me... BUT I guess there is somehow something about being at the bottom is that you can always improve, embrace that... I'm a 30 years old woman that comes from a little town, i traveled around and study in good places, but now im back into my hometown and I know the feeling of not belonging and having to start over from scratch.
P.S English is not my mother tongue, so go easy on me.
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