Am I Doing It Right?

Prateek Sinha
3 min readMar 7, 2022

The 20s, oh the fear of that accompanies people turning 20s. The weight of the incoming future, the fear of not having it all figured out, the fear of falling behind, the fear of falling short, the fear of the expectations of your loved ones, the fear of judgement from your peers, but most importantly the fear that maybe you didn’t try hard enough.

The problem with our society, in general, is that everyone expects a young adult to have it all figured out. The other problem is showing everyone that you are happy and well adjusted all the time. The pressure from the social environment, primarily due to social media, is enormous. The amount of pressure we put on ourselves is just unreal, and it’s not that the pressure amounts to doing something productive; it just bogs us down with negative emotions. It is said that diamonds are forged under pressure, it’s an irrefutable fact, but graphite breaks under pressure, it doesn’t mean that graphite is less useful than a diamond. It also shows that not everyone should take the same amount of stress. However, it is tricky because another factor that comes into the picture is the inherent comparison that we subconsciously try to do. What if I don’t do as well in comparison to my friends? What if I am still unsure about what I want to do? What if?

I am also very spooked about what the future holds for me. I am still worried that I have no attachment to my course curriculum after getting into an engineering institution that people only dream of. I don’t know what I want to do or see myself doing. I am decent at studies, I can even be good at things I don’t like, but I am not as motivated to do those things.

I remember a quote by Steve JobsYou cannot connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward.”

This quote might not offer solace or sympathy to distressed minds like ours, but I believe that one day all of these things I do, even though I think that they are useless, will make sense.

I can’t offer any solution to the question, “ Am I doing it right?” because I don’t have it. I can only provide my shoulder as support that millions of people don’t have it all figured out, and I believe that figuring out is a process rather than a result.

But what I will leave you with is a bit of advice, which I will also try to follow through: “ Your journey is meant for you only; there is no one who can undertake that journey better than you do, so even if you are tempted, try to avoid comparing yourself with others.”

There will be support from unexpected sources, but you will have to believe that you are doing the best you can because, in the end, that’s all you can do. Cheers!! And good luck.

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Prateek Sinha

I love chess, tennis, thrillers, movies, tv shows and and I write about them when I feel like it ;)