Does Everyone Else Have Life All Figured Out?

Pretty much every day I do something foolish. To add salt to the wound, I’ll typically notice others seemingly flowing through hurdles flawlessly, leading me to ponder how the heck I’m so bad at this. Twenty-four years worth of experience and nowhere near getting the hang of life – is that normal? Often times it’s easy to get caught up in setting our standards and placing our bars where others’ are, while fitting into molds that we’ve seeing succeed.

That’s a bad idea for a couple of reasons. One — we shouldn’t let anybody else’s successes or failures dictate our own actions. If there’s a goal you’d like to accomplish or a dream you want to live out, it should be yours solely. Whether it’s a passionate desire or a matter of trying to fit in, it’s certainly personal, and the outside’s opinions are irrelevant. Two, it’ll always appear easier, smoother, prettier, better, greener, on the other side. This is why it’s so frightening when we struggle — because based on appearances we’re the only one’s having difficulties, even though that’s far from the case.

Most of the time we don’t see the blood, sweat and tears that came before others’ triumphs. We don’t witness their stumbles that came along the way, or the letdowns that forced that person to either fold or get back up. All we’re aware of is the happy end result, leading us to believe that we’re subpar, and wondering how others are prospering regularly.

This goes for other aspects of life as well. You might catch yourself in possession of a hopeless or nonexistent love life. When we’re single it’s easy to spot all of the happy relationships and feel envious of those couples. It can cause you to question why you’re not involved with anyone, or even currently being sought after. Then it’ll seem as if even the other girlfriend/boyfriend-less folks are better at being single than you are. They mingle, they have fun, they date – but there you are, eating solo lunches and having a relatively empty text message inbox. You’ll wonder what everyone else is doing that you aren’t, and what qualities you’re missing. The thing is, it’s rarely what it seems and even if it were – you can’t control it. There’s no surefire way to make people want to date you. However it’ll certainly help to quit actively seeking love instead of making individual improvements your focal point. Perhaps self-progress will lead to more attention from the ones you’re longing for.

Then there simply come times where it seems like you’re oblivious and out of the loop on things that others are well aware of. It’s as if a memo goes around to everyone, with the intentional exclusion of you. This document tells people how to behave and be socially accepted in ways that you can’t seem to manage. Little things like you meaning well and being misunderstood can trigger a serious self-evaluation session. You won’t be able to recall anyone who deals with the same lack of patience from others that you do, and it’ll hurt. Are people less tolerant of your mistakes than they are of other people? It’s not uncommon to feel as if that’s the case sometimes.

Ultimately it’s important to realize that it’s all an illusion. A big façade in which everyone appears to be living comfortably, with great love lives, constant breaks, heaps of success and problem-free days. Here’s the honest truth: nobody has life all figured out. The older I get, the more certain I am that nobody ever comes near fully understanding it. If someone did, what would be the point? We wouldn’t appreciate the finer things without having experienced some of the less joyful times. The key is to remember that. To make certain that we’re well aware of everyone else’s downfalls. Nobody has it perfect, and in all likelihood someone’s got it far worse than you currently do. Regardless of our situation, good or bad – rest assured that nobody has it figured out. 

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