Nobody thinks that they’re good enough anymore.

Sometimes, I don’t, either.

I don’t know what it is. But most people that I know have some kind of insecurity. You’re not pretty enough, or not smart enough, or you don’t play basketball well enough. You’re just not good enough.

And sometimes, you look at that one kid, and you think that they’re absolutely perfect in every single way. They’re so pretty, and so smart, and so good at basketball or whatever it is. But once you get to know them, you realize that they don’t think they’re good enough, either. And then you think, “But they’re so perfect!” Except they’re not, in their own minds.

Maybe we just have too much pressure put on ourselves today. I don’t know. My mom is a computer engineer, and my dad is a chemistry teacher. I think everyone expects me to graduate from a top-tier school, like them, and become, say, a doctor or a lawyer or a physics professor. But maybe I don’t want to. Maybe I want to go to film school. Or maybe I want to be a preschool teacher. Who cares? My parents certainly don’t, because they’ve always been supportive of me. But I feel like everyone else sets these high standards for me, in their heads, that become plainly obvious when I get a C on a math test.

Maybe I put the pressure on myself. Maybe I work myself too hard. Maybe I expect myself to become a neurosurgeon, even though I know that I don’t really want to. I do admit, I’m quite the perfectionist. Maybe I’m the one telling myself that I’m not pretty enough. Maybe I’m the one who looks at the movie stars on magazine covers and says, “Gee, I’m too fat.”

I’ve always admired those people who could not give two cruds what anyone else thinks of them. They’re always happy, all the time, and nothing gets to them. They’re nice to everyone around them, because why would they need to be mean? To put someone down? They already feel good about themselves. To people like that, life is a meadow full of tulips and daffodils, and they are fluffy, little sheep, prancing through that meadow. Okay, that was a terrible analogy. I don’t know if sheep prance through meadows. I don’t even know if sheep can prance at all.

My point is, maybe we should try to be like that. Maybe we should just stop. Stop worrying about what others think of us, stop worrying what others want us to do, what others want us to be. Because you know what? You are you. You are the sole controller of your life. Not them, you.

Maybe we should all try to be sheep. And instead of stumbling along through a dark, terrifying forest, we should try to find that meadow.