Feeling Behind
Today, my high school friend Vincent became the first one in our bro group to get engaged. The bois at the start responded with a bunch of “congrats!” and quickly joked about how this group will start to end since everyone will get married soon, like some kind of domino effect. As I am the only one who is single in the group, one of the bois texted, "you got lapped by Vincent!" It stirred up a mix of emotions within me, a mixture of excitement for Vincent entering this next stage of life and a tinge of self-doubt and questioning of my own progress. I felt behind.
Since my friends and I started working, I have always felt a sense of being behind. It's not just about their professional achievements; it's also about their personal lives. While my friends were achieving milestones in their careers, relationships, and wealth, I would look at myself and compare and see that I am nowhere near. Some of them are already buying their own homes, which in Hong Kong is like the most difficult thing to do. Some are doctors and lawyers earning seven-figure salaries per year, while I am always working overtime for the comparatively little money that architects make. They seem to have a very clear upward trajectory and have it all figured out, while I am still struggling with what I should do after quitting architecture. It's during these moments that the race of life feels particularly relentless, as if we're struggling to catch up while others effortlessly glide ahead. Yes, it is a race, and I feel like I have already lost.
In addition to personal experiences, societal pressures can also contribute to the feeling of being behind in life. Particularly in Asian societies, there is often a prevailing expectation that individuals should achieve certain milestones by a certain age. For instance, it is common to hear that one should be married by 30 years old, have a stable career, or own a home. Coupled with social media showing all these young people who have achieved success and become billionaires at age sixteen, it really feels like I am quite bad at managing my life. Especially after experiencing a breakup, I am convinced that I don’t deserve to be loved until I achieve success, and it makes me focus on the "important" stuff over things like dating. My personal motto becomes: Sort out your shit first, become successful like others, and then you can be qualified to think about girls.
While I am told that everyone is running their own race and should only focus on their own growth, it is quite hard to ignore the fact that your pals all grew up in the same school as you and they are doing much better. Some of them even have lower grades than me back in high school, and they did not go to a prestigious university like I did. I pretend that I am okay with all this, but deep down, I am quite jealous. At the same time, there is also a sense of regret because I was not grateful for what I had when I actually had things that others don’t. I had a really good partner, I had a really good university life, really good university mates but I refused to see it. And now that they are gone, I still do not know how to appreciate what I currently have.
However, I think that thinking like this is also quite dangerous as it would make you invalidate the things that you have worked on and lead me to believe that what I have been doing in the past was all wasteful and wrong. It would be great if I could be more appreciative of what I currently have and see what I can make out of it. In a way, blaming my past experiences and decisions, no matter how bad I think they are, is too easy. It almost becomes an excuse for me to not take responsibility for my future.
I think I would be happier and more content when I can forge my own path that is different from the usual path and timeline that society has set. I think one has to really buy into the idea that because you are running a race that is so different from others, you can't really compare yourself to those people who are running in ordinary races. Don't get me wrong, I still want what others want, like a partner whom I can connect with on a deep level, a family, and the ability to provide financially, but maybe right now, I just need to continue to be who I want to be and ignore the WHEN. Because at the end of the day, no one can really control the timing of opportunities in life; you just have to be ready for them.
At the same time, I have started to take time to celebrate the small wins in life and the people who were with me along the way because they are hard to come by. In the past, I have not really acknowledged my achievements or the people who have helped because once I achieved something like a distinction in my Master's degree or an architecture award, I would think that it was trivial compared to what those sixteen-year-old self-made millionaires have achieved. But now, I would rather view these people as inspirations. For example, people like Ali Abdaal who quit medicine to become a YouTuber, or David Park who built Jenny. And it would be amazing if I could achieve the things I want in an unconventional way and tell others who don't want to fit into the societal playbook how to do it. And in that sense, I think I am exactly where I need to be. You might think this is just trying to be delusional, but I guess a lot of extraordinary things are built by delusional people.
