That’s What’s Wrong

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For Me?

It went all wrong. My time in college. Something about it was just completely wrong. I made one really good friend, which is great but I thought there would be more. I was overwhelmed by the campus, the classes, and the experience. It just wasn’t right at all. What wasn’t right about it, though, wasn’t it. Its wrongness was because of me.

I don’t really know what I expected. This probably stemmed from not knowing myself. I thought everyone had to “fit” life into the place they were supposed to be. I guess most do make it fit, and I guess some people are really good at it. To me it ended up feeling like I had tricked myself. Almost like life was cheating me. But I was the cheater and the cheated.

High school only showed me that people can be mean and that all my experiences had to be treated like a trip to Vegas. What happened there, stayed there. I know now that their experiences mixed with mine made them appear mean. The secrecy was my insecurity not wanting to face what I saw. My insecurities kept up that perception. But, only more life clarified this.

College was different. It’s like we all get thrown together in the Big Brother house and are told to just go claim our territory. I wasn’t good at it. Even though I had access to the outside world, that world kept telling me to stay inside my new one. That it was where my life needed to be lived. 

Once again, though, it felt like living in secret. The difference was that this time, I saw how the secrecy wasn’t good for me. What I now saw as wrong helped me find what’s right. Knowing that life on campus wasn’t “it” helped me see beyond it.

Instead of trying to fit my life into an experience that I wasn’t ready for, I decided to pivot and go another way. It was painful. I had failed at adapting. I had failed at achieving. But, I succeeded in believing in myself outside of what’s expected. What was wrong led to right. My imposter stopped taking my power. Slowly but suddenly, I started believing in something different. I saw other possibilities.

I stopped believing I wasn’t smart enough. Compared to who? I stopped believing that life could only take certain paths. I stopped denying that I was worthy of something other than anything that was expected. I stopped caring about disappointing people. Most importantly, I started listening to myself as a worthy whole woman who carries her own power.

Wrong to Right

I was wrong for college, but it showed me the way to right. It’s all here now for me. On the outside. I’m free. I get to start out wrong. It makes it easier to be wrong again. Wrong is actually good. Breaking from where I’m headed and losing confidence in what I’m doing actually helps me. I learn to look up and around for another destination. It guides me through my fear.

I know that I learn so much from failure. I’m beginning to learn when I can make something work and when I shouldn’t. For example, right after campus life, I had a job that I decided to leave. It wasn’t working out and I didn’t see any future there. Then, I went back to that same job because I couldn’t find another way.

I ended up in the same place again. Lesson learned. I didn’t listen to myself. Not really. I didn’t want to advance in that job in the first place. I talked myself into it. The second time I had that job, my life was already shifting. I became aware of so much more about working, relating to people, and what I could accomplish on my own.

I didn’t get caught in the failure even though the decision to go back to that job was the wrong one. I made that decision for people other than me. To follow the familiar. To find some security. Neither was right for me. I’ve learned that the familiar isn’t always the truth. And, security is relative to what I might be sacrificing for it.

These lessons are critical to so much of how I live my life. The guilt from failure, the guilt of disappointing people, and the guilt from letting myself down fade away behind me. What I take with me is the lesson of trusting myself, listening closely to what I really want, and not being more afraid of going after what I want than never trying.

What do you really want from your life? Maybe learning from what went wrong can be a big step to finding it. I know it’s been a huge part of how I got here. I’m learning to be courageous enough to face my failures. It helps me shift my life toward the awesome one I truly want.

Being wrong and knowing it is such an amazing learning experience. I will use this knowledge throughout my life. Ironically, I’m letting the missteps be my guide. When I ignored them, I missed the lessons. So glad I’m not afraid to take the next step.

Using wrong to get to right, and write about it…