your younger self expected more.
musings on failure and growth
There are posters that I’ve been seeing lately with a photo of one of those worksheets kids fill out with the title: “When I grow up… I want to be a [blank] because [blank].”
But instead of dreamy jobs like “astronaut” or “dancer,” the scribbled-in answers are “law attorney in Big Law” or “investment banker.” The hand-drawn photos for the prompt show a person at an office job, looking sad.
Most jarringly, the top of the poster reads, “Your younger self expected more.”
Especially during my last semester of college, these posters seem to be following me around everywhere—from the dining hall all the way to the gym.
I’ve thought a lot about the question of whether I’ve lived up to what my past self would have expected and mused about whether or not I owe my past self something. The question of whether my younger self would be proud of me has been a constant, haunting reminder that I might not be reaching my full potential.
I haven’t been proudest of everything I’ve done in the past few years. It's been easier to view the world through the single lens of persistence.
In my previous article about independence, I wrote: “I expect myself to be perfect because I’m afraid that failure isn’t an option.” In one of my recent classes, we were asked to write a reflection on what failure means to us.
I responded: “I suppose failure is inherently tied to worth—how much we view ourselves as worthy of a status or achievement or how much others deem us to be worth.”
The poster’s critique of high-paying, high-achievement jobs addresses the latter half of that statement. It demonstrates how, in the context of work, failure means the lack of legibility for those whose success is narrowly defined.
I find that, to many people, I fit the definition of failure because of how much time I’ve dedicated to a project about sitcoms that many people don’t understand. I’ve become a failure in sports, quitting because I could no longer take the toxicity of the space. I’ve failed time and time again, but failing in others’ eyes has massively improved my life.
The poster also addresses the first half of the statement, the idea of deeming our own worth. It implies that by taking on these kinds of jobs, one betrays their younger selves and the big dreams they once had.
While I see where the poster is coming from, I also know plenty of people, particularly people of color and other folks who live in the margins, who have taken on morally dubious, high-paying jobs for their own survival. I have been one of those people.
There’s a Mary Ruefle quote I’ve been thinking about lately: “As far back as I could remember, every minute of my life had been an emergency in which I was paralyzed with fear.” I deeply relate to this feeling of emergency, but this semester I’ve actually been shocked by the moments when those alarm bells have fallen quiet.
For the first time in a while, I have a somewhat secure future, knowing that I will be somewhere for longer than five months consecutively for the first time in almost four years. I also, oddly, have a lot of hope, even if I am quite often struck by a state of depression by what’s happening in the world.
The word “possibility” keeps returning to my life over and over again. In particular, I’ve been curious about future possibilities of failure and what that might entail. I have failed many times in the past, and finally accepting that fear of failure and working to co-exist with it instead of fighting it has helped me go after
Even at my age, I don’t know what I want to do with my life and am sure to encounter many obstacles along the way. However, I have been emboldened by the feeling that there’s so much I want to do. And that drive has been missing for a very long time.
When I think about what my younger self expected of me, I can only think of the piles of lined binder paper stuffed in folders that I had found over the holiday break when I was cleaning out my childhood bedroom. They were pages of my writing and hastily drawn comics, all products of my boredom during elementary school classes.
When I was younger, I was surrounded by artists who had won awards for their drawings. In contrast, I fiercely guarded my writing, terrified that it was never good enough for anyone to see. I was terrified that the one thing I loved was only worthy of failure.
Today, I look at this Substack and see the posts I’ve written, reckoning with my life. I look at the articles I’ve written for work about TV. I look at my sitcom research and the report that I’ve been developing for almost a year now. I look at this page as I’m typing and think that my younger self never expected more when they could never imagine a future.
And to have a future, to be here today, still writing, is perhaps the greatest success of all.
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