At this moment — I am incredibly happy. I am so excited about where my life and career are headed and I’m proud of everything I’ve done to get myself to this point. At this moment — I am so grateful for everyone and everything in my life and I sometimes wonder where I would be if I didn’t have the support that I do. All that being said, it wasn’t an easy road to get to this point. I’ve been an “official adult” for a decade now and those years have been filled with a lot of lessons, mistakes and at times, some pretty low points. I’ve recently heard from a few people that it seems like I’m “really organized” or that I “make working and going to school seem easy”, and to be honest, that’s because I want it to seem that way. I don’t talk or post about the sleepless nights I spend working on papers and projects because I’ve put them off for weeks. I don’t share the times I get home after working all day and pour a big glass of wine and order in dinner because I “literally can’t even” think about making myself dinner. I don’t post about all the times I hated my job and called in sick sometimes because staying in bed was easier than getting my act together and going into the office. I don’t share the times I sat at my computer and cried because I had so much to do and felt so behind and overwhelmed that I didn’t know where to start. I don’t share these things, not because I want to portray a certain image of everything being easy, but because I’ve been genuinely ashamed of this behavior. But, that’s all changed recently.
To say I have a lot going on is an understatement. And, to be honest, I often think I took on more than I could handle. For the last couple of years I’ve been working full-time while trying to get through grad school in two years, taking on side jobs and trying to start a blog (obviously this is what has been on the back burner). I made the choices to take on all this to get where I want to be and now that I’m seeing the results of that work, I don’t feel bad about it. I studied for and took the GRE 4 years after graduating from college and let me tell you, it wasn’t like riding a bike. The math didn’t come easy and I spent hours on flashcards for words I probably should have already known. I wasn’t a stellar student growing up so finding a way to motivate myself to study and actually get a decent grade was HARD.
I tried different things over the years to find out what my passion was but didn’t quit the jobs I hated in order to do it. I’ve worked really, really hard to get to where I am and I’m finally able to recognize that for myself. I didn’t want to share the struggles because I thought it would be taking something away from myself but I realize now that that’s not the case.
No one ever has it all together. And, as someone who currently works in social media and previously worked in influencer marketing, I can assure you that LITERALLY no one does. Your favorite influencer who always makes the perfect bento box lunches for her child and manages to work out 7 days a week, curl her hair, and do a full face of makeup every morning? Yeah, she doesn’t exist. People are so afraid of admitting how hard it is sometimes just to get through the day and to share how much help they have, and I think that’s really sad.
As humans, we all want to succeed. Success is in the nature of us and we all want to thrive and perform at or above the level of our peers. The problem is, we don’t admit our failures. We’re so focused on succeeding that we forget to actually do what’s normal, to be human. Those people you see on Instagram with the perfect life… they have an assistant filtering their photos. Those businesses you see thriving… they have a social media manager taking their photos and building their audience. And, THAT’S OKAY! It’s okay to ask for help. It’s okay to admit you don’t have every aspect of your life figured out.
For a long time, I thought I had to do it all alone. It’s only recently that I realized it’s okay to ask for help at work, at school, and life in general. In finding a way to open myself up to this help, I realized that we’re all just doing our best and there’s no shame in that. Whether you take everything on yourself or you give up all your responsibilities to someone else, it’s your choice. Life is too short to play a blame game in who’s doing what and to make people feel bad for not doing it all on their own. That being said, if you’re really thriving and doing it yourself, you rock. And, if you’re not, that’s okay too and don’t be afraid to be honest about sharing the help you have.