Opinion | Learning to lower my expectations

Kali Hoffman

Managing Editor

Like most people, I’m pretty mediocre in a lot of ways. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy, I like myself, I have friends, some talents, decent grades and all that, but none of that stopped me from having a quarter life crisis over break after realizing my life will be – if I’m lucky – pretty average.

I was sitting on the couch, rewatching “The Office” for the 50 millionth time, as one does after finals, when I suddenly burst into tears. My parents offhandedly asked me what was wrong. I told them, gesturing to the set on the TV screen, that I was worried that while my friends were off getting cool internships, going to graduate school and just generally following their dreams, my lack of a “dream” – or even just a loosely defined life plan – was a guarantee that I would be left behind while my peers went on to change the world.

“Yeah, maybe,” they said, “Everyone feels like that.” I had expected them to say “No! You’re our daughter and you’re great and you will change the world!” but thank god they didn’t. I had never been so relieved in my life. After years of being obsessed with being seen as exceptional, I realized all I wanted was for someone to tell me it’s totally fine to just be fine. I know that this is something everyone has to come to grips with eventually and I can already feel some people rolling their eyes at this column because it’s a typical 20-something epiphany to have, but I didn’t realize how much I needed to realize this.

At 21, I felt like my life had already passed me by. I felt sick-to-my-stomach guilty for every moment that I wasn’t applying to jobs or updating my portfolio or using my hobbies as a side hustle. I felt like the only way to be successful was to be wildly successful, and, honestly, it made me a bad person. I was insufferably self-conscious and jealous. It was hard to be happy for other people’s successes because it only reminded me of how much I was failing, even though I wasn’t really failing at all. Nobody expected that much from me, but I was expecting so much of myself even though it didn’t make me happy.

I don’t really have any goals, so I don’t know why I was freaking out over falling short of reaching milestones that didn’t even exist. I’m not giving up – I even still pay for LinkedIn Premium – but I’m not going to make myself feel bad for doing things I actually like. Taking a day to relax instead of instead of planning for the future won’t kill me. I’ll probably live a pretty average life so I’m just going to focus on living the best average life I can. Chances are things will turn out just fine.