What must it feel like?

When I was 16-years old, I learned that not every person has allergies. I learned that many, many people breathe effortlessly through their noses almost every day of the year. Seriously, I had no idea. I thought everyone spent the first hour of every morning blowing their itchy noses and coughing.

Today, I think I had another, similar realization. Some people feel successful. Some people go to sleep feeling like they've done the best they could and are absolutely happy with that.

Just as I once realized that I experienced allergies that not everyone feels, all the time, like they could have and should have done more.

I also have never felt exactly like a failure - it's not that dramatic. I just have always felt like I didn't quite live up to potential. Like all those notes my third-grade teacher wrote on my report card were not just correct, but an eerie premonition.

I live under the constant, pressing, URGENT notion that I should be doing more, doing better, achieving something I'm not.

Is it just me?

Or is that Clue No. 1 that, hey, maybe you should be doing more? Maybe it's not neurotic self-doubt, but an actual, constructive self-realization that has lasted for 38 YEARS.

I've been thinking about this for days, and another realization came to me. During the year after my surgery and cancer diagnosis, that feeling was gone. It's as though I was so focused on getting better, I gave myself a short reprieve from the constant strain of being better.

Comments

[Rev Dr Mom]

I think you are not alone. I don't feel that way all the time, but I sure have days when I do...and sometimes weeks.