I don’t tend to write the more “personal” things here because a) it kind of dawned on me in the last few years that public spaces on the Internet are public to the entire world (depending on your office firewall, har har), and b) I don’t want my personal business to be anybody else’s business but mine, which is what tends to happen when people share even a miniscule detail about their lives. Just because I share something I think or feel, it doesn’t mean that I want to share more about it… Blogs are often receptacles for my thoughts and feelings, so I hate it when people pry too much because I very rarely like talking about deeply personal things. So, I’ve resorted to vague, abstract versions of white-hot feelings on this space, which makes me hate it a little bit because then it sort of stopped feeling like it was mine.

I admire people who air everything out in the open, but unfortunately, I am a person who cares about what people think of her. Perhaps a little bit too much, which is something I’d like to change about myself. Here’s a step towards not caring and also towards possibly being O.K. with who I’m turning out to be.

I’ll be turning 26 at the end of the month, and I sometimes feel like I’m not doing enough. This is pretty much a constant feeling, and even though I sometimes have actual output to prove otherwise, I feel like I’m not doing enough, by which I simply mean, I’m not doing as much as I could be. Life feels like it’s out of my depth, and I don’t know how to begin to navigate if I’m drowning.

It’s never healthy to compare, but that’s what I’ve been doing for who knows how long, and before I knew it, all these feelings of doubt and inadequacy have nested inside me. And you know what? Those feelings are freaking hard to get rid of and hard to get over. I am not the most motivated person in the world, and it is a constant battle to talk yourself out of giving up and settling for something you know you don’t want. Sometimes, giving yourself pep talks that you don’t listen to (?? !!) gets a little tiring. I know success and fulfillment mean different things to different people, and I think about if I’d be happy just being a good person, etc. etc. and right now, I’m not quite sure if that’s enough for me to feel like I’m doing my best or living the best version of my life that I could be.

I’ve spoken and written and whined about feeling stuck before, and part of me feels like my unconscious decision to revert to inaction is partly due to this comfortable paralysis. The fear of everything that comes with trying takes root in your heart and makes you just not want to do things. And when you spend enough time not doing anything, you kind of lose your bearings and forget where you are and where you want to go.

Right now, the view up ahead is a little foggy and I’m honestly really scared of the future—both on a personal level and on a global, catastrophic level—because if I don’t know where I want to go, how do I start walking towards it?