I’ve never felt more useless than during covid. In my country, every Thursday evening we all lined up outside to applaud health workers. Quite rightly, we recognised their bravery and heroism in frightening circumstances.
I, on the other hand, wasn’t saving lives. I’ve spent the last few years writing about magical shops and talking about custard—the very definition of optional activities.
I kept wishing I could concretely help, and I found myself pondering paths not taken, like one where I trained as a doctor. Wherever my thoughts took me, I kept encountering a familiar feeling: the sense that I’m lacking something important.
**
Recently I was in a Zoom chat with an online mental health group. Each week, one member shares their story and afterwards we all chat about it.
This particular week the story was about how the teller’s creative side had been stifled as a child and how they’d spent a lifetime learning to re-embrace it. She’d been told at a very young age that she was uncreative, and she’d absorbed this so deeply it had been part of her identity for decades. It was only now, in her forties, that she realised just how wrong that belief was.
I’ve only ever met her in her current incarnation as an extremely creative person. Watching her churn out poetry and videos and homemade art, it’s impossible to comprehend how she could ever have believed that she was essentially uncreative.
Except… it isn’t impossible, because I’ve been there too. It is always possible to find a way in which something is lacking. I can imagine criticising everything I could possibly make, for one reason or another. A perfectly tragic poem isn’t very cheerful. A happy poem is too light. A delightful family video is “just fluff.” A powerful dramatic video is too harsh.
No creation is ever all things, so we can always find a way in which it is lacking.
**
My life, too, is only ever one thing. Sometimes that one thing contains many: right now, I’m a writer-comedian-developer. But no matter how many “manys” I add, I can always find something I lack.
During covid, I lacked “life-saving.” Should I train as a doctor? Become the world’s first writer-comedian-developer-doctor…?
But what about after that? I bet there’ll be something else I’m missing then…
The one constant in my ever-evolving life is that whatever I do I can find a way in which I’m lacking.
**
In the Zoom chat, my friend talked about those lost decades, and how she regretted all the books she’d failed to write during them.
But after they finished, another member reframed this: “You’re thinking in terms of output, but I know you, and your creativity is just who you are. Your existence, the way you live your life, the effect you have on other people… all of this is also creativity, even if you haven’t written all the books you imagined you could have by now. You inspire others in everything you do.”
I loved this. She’d thought it was essential to express her creative side in a specific way, but her friend’s comment freed her. Her very essence meant that everything she did was somehow creative. This was the precise antidote to her childhood absorption of the idea that she was essentially uncreative. She could see herself as essentially creative to her core.
With this belief, it’s impossible to see her life as lacking. (Not that anyone else did, of course, but she had her own regrets.) She simply had to live her life as best she could, and creativity would flow naturally.
**
I might not be out there saving lives with medical treatment, but I know that if I were, I’d find something else that I lack. Whatever I do, I could always be doing more.
Perhaps instead of chasing my perceived deficiencies, I could stop believing my life CAN be lacking. Whatever my friend does, she is essentially creative. Perhaps I’m essentially complete, whatever I do.
Perhaps we’re all complete, and we’re just choosing how best to express it.
Your Turn
How do you handle feeling insufficient, or critical of your creations? Have you ever found a deep new belief which changes your outlook? Share with the community in the comments.
This landed with me with absolute perfect timing. I thank you 🙂 big time. I’ll definitely be returning to this. Letting these words resonate into the parts of me that I know need to hear em. And even (maybe especially!) the parts that I don’t even know are here <3
Thank you.
It makes me very happy to hear that, Brandi! I know I need to return to this idea even though I wrote the article – slowly reabsorbing the lesson again and again until it sinks in 🙂
I can totally relate to the feeling lacking and trying too hard to do it all. I lived like this for a long time, exhausting myself and never really finding my true talents (the fact that I am good at many things, like all of us here, did not help). Then I understood that to bring the maximum contribution to the world I had to be myself. Easier said than done. The path of discovery of our uniqueness is an adventure in itself, but I feel the closer I get to my true essence, the more I can express exactly what is needed out there. And, yes, we do contribute in myriad ways even if we feel we don’t. It’s tempting to look at what others do, but in my opinion, being your best (happy, satisfied) self is what helps the world most.
This is such a perfect comment! It is weirdly difficult to simply be ourselves but it’s also the biggest contribution we can make – I love it! 🙂
“Perhaps we’re all complete, and we’re just choosing how best to express it.” You’re exactly right. The feeling of lack comes from the “choosing” or “choice” being a requirement for self fulfillment. If you can let go of the false belief that fulfillment requires something outside of you, and let go of all the things that you think will fulfill you if you do them, you will be on track to feeling more fulfilled. This does not mean you can’t choose to do them. It just means that you don’t have to suffer from lack because of wanting to do them for fulfillment. Does that make sense? If this is too abstract or unclear, I would be happy to explain further.
I totally get it, Billy, and thank you for sharing it. “Letting go of the false belief that fulfilment requires something external” is spot on 🙂
There is some thing we all lack that we need fulfilled. And you are right about this. I think there is one particular thing I want to do at this point in time also and lack the skills and resources for this project I wish to make into reality although am a multipotentialite myself. I do also know what I have yet to improve on. All the best…
Thanks, and good luck!
I remember a moment where I felt insufficient while I was in speech class. I was one of the last people to give my speech. Everyone before me had spoken about really REAL things that had happened to them in life. Like, life was TOUGH for them and they spoke of overcoming those obstacles. I honestly don’t remember what the assignment was but I remember the somber feeling in the room as we all listened to one story after the other. Right before my turn, a transgender woman got up to tell her story. And her story was like so many of the others we’ve heard in recent years. She was bullied, moments of self doubt, thoughts of suicide, the whole nine. Then it was my turn. I’d worked sooo hard on my speech. When I walked into the room, I was confident. But as I sat there listening to everyone, my confidence started to waiver. I got to the podium and told the class “After hearing you all, I don’t even want to give my speech.” Everyone started giving me encouraging words and I just went for it. You know what my speech was about? FACEBOOK. It had just started to become popular in the mainstream and I talked about my experiences navigating this new thing. I talked about the people I’d reconnected with and how that made me feel. As I gave my speech, the energy in the room changed. We were no longer a class full of heavy hearts. People laughed, they smiled, they nodded, they shouted their agreement with certain observations and revelations I had. Everyone was just lighter by the end of my speech. I realized that my speech was just what we all needed. That bright spot coming through the cloud that was over us all. I was really ready to take a zero for that assignment because I felt it didn’t measure up to everyone else’s life experience. I wasn’t as “deep” as everyone else. That situation taught me that me being me and sharing as only I can is enough. If I hadn’t let me be me in that moment we would have been a very very sad bunch of individuals. Sometimes we need different. If everyone was the same there would be no balance.
This is a great example of how we all bring different things that are equally as important. It also reminds me of why I always prefer to present earlier before others, so that I don’t compare myself as much 🙂 thank you for sharing!
Going early is a very good tip!!! #lessonlearned 🙂
Loved this! Thanks a lot for sharing it
Such a great story, Kear! It’s so relatable how you grew more and more worried that your contribution wasn’t going to be deep enough (or that it would seem trivial compared to everyone else) but you went for it and spoke about what was genuine to you in that moment and everyone responded so well. We all have something to contribute and the balance and differences make life interesting, for sure.
This is a great reminder! Thank you for sharing your story – and for having the courage to be you. Allowing ourselves to be different can make all the difference 🙂
Thanks so much for this, Neil! I think I get obsessed with things like output and usefulness because of a middle-class upbringing in a capitalist society. They definitely impinge on my mental health as well. My dad is what I’ll call a working creative – a successful academic musician who writes tons of words/books and some music – and his example of never seeming to struggle the same way I do with procrastination, self-doubt, etc. – has been both an inspiration toward creative work and, well, intimidating.
Ha, yeah, I can totally imagine… “thanks for the inspiration but I’m totally intimidated by this” would be my reaction too! It’s really hard to separate our sense of self, and self-worth, from our output, but I think it leads to a happier life and even better output if we can pull it off 😀
I usually feel I’m lacking because I have a chronic illness that stops me from doing all the things I’d like to do… or that I feel I should do. So it’s a really healthy (!) mixture of frustration for my unexplored potential and guilt about my obligations to others. It’s reassuring in a strange way to realise from these posts that I’d probably still feel lacking even if my body was working properly. I’d simply raise the bar of my expectations. Maybe that’s the key for many of us: to adjust our own expectations of ourselves to closer fit the reality, instead of expecting to create and maintain the wonderlife so often sold to us as the norm these days?
Yes! I love this perspective, and you’re so right. Sometimes I imagine having the thing I am currently lacking, and wonder “what would I feel I was lacking then”, and there’s always something. It just proves to me that it’s exactly as you say: the problem is my expectations and my attitude, both of which I CAN adjust. Thank you so much!
Lauren, I can really relate to what you are saying. A fragile health made worse by my attempts to ignore it and do “what the others do” has been an ongoing issue in my life. Just recently I started to see that one’s output can be incredibly valuable even with the least functioning of the bodies. For exemple, a young woman I know, born with an invalidating illness and fighting most days of her life with excruciating headaches, has taught me that it takes great strenght to be ill. And with this strenght we can inspire and empower others around us.
She also had close encounters with death (she clinically died in the operating room 4 times and came back), this made her the ideal person to assist others in their last hours and ease their passage. She is a beautiful soul that helps the world greatly and her example has changed the way I look at my expectations about myself and others.
I’m graduating from college next year, and I’m still unsure of how I see myself contributing to the world. I’m studying biology, so I’m hoping to do something in the scientific field, but there are so many avenues that I can take. I see so many important issues that I want to help with. I compare myself to my peers who have specific goals & plans for their one focus. Sometimes I wonder if I steered towards a science career because I thought it was the “best” way to contribute. I love music, art, and literature, and they are just as important to society, but I don’t feel that I’m talented enough for those paths. At the same time, I don’t always feel enough for my chosen science path either. I’m not sure where I’m going with this comment, but thank you for this article!
Something odd just happened when I read your comment. I wanted to reply and let you know that it’s okay not to know yet. I was going to tell you how as a 38 year old woman with a literal stack of qualifications sitting in a drawer at home, I’m also still unsure of how I see myself contributing. All I know is that I want to spend my life continuing to discover everything I can, and I want to contribute in some way.
Then the weird thing happened. In thinking about how to word my reply my mind shifted back to an glimmer of an idea I had years ago and never acted on, but now, thanks to all my experiences so far, I have more of an idea how to accomplish it.
So I guess my attempt at commiserating and saying “no need to worry, things happen at different paces for everyone” actually just clarified a few things for me, too.
Oh wow, I love this! An idea whose time has come! Good luck and thanks for sharing the moment with us 🙂
I get it! I did a science degree because I thought it was the most useful, and I create artistic things (arguably) because I want to, but I criticise each for not being the other, if that makes sense! I suspect that you could be happy and could contribute greatly down any of the avenues you’re thinking of taking, it’s just a matter of going down one and living it as genuinely and fully as possible. Good luck 🙂
At the time that I graduated with my science degree, I loved it very much and got a job in the field (mathematical software). At the same time, I made quilts and took classes in philosophy one night a week. I’ve since left the industry and afterwards I studied different things, including theology, economics and fine art. I play the piano now. My career was pretty demanding but we had an amazing product and it paid well. I think in my case the feeling of lacking is not that there was one thing I wasn’t doing, it was that I compared myself to the top people in everything I did. In philosophy I compared myself not only to the professors but to great philosophers. In art I compared myself to the top students who were full time (I was part time). In piano I compare myself to my teacher, who is world class. That’s not good and in reality at this point in my life I don’t do that as much. I’m starting to learn how to focus on my core values, which cannot be compared as easily to other people. I value compassion for example. I don’t measure my compassion against that of other people. How could I? It’s a very deep thing that you can’t actually measure quantitatively, and there’s no one value that’s better than any other value. If someone else values friendship more than I do or more than compassion, that’s not a problem, for example. So knowing what I value gets me in touch with my core self that is outside of ability and output.
You’re not alone in this. I am the same. I got my Bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and now I don’t have the faintest idea what I want to do and how I want to contribute to the world. Everything I think of seems so weird and illogical because they are paths I have never taken; I’ve always been in this science mindset and environment and now I think of music, writing and acting besides the engineering field. It all seems crazy and it’s even crazier when I imagine myself in one of these because I’m always thinking about other ones too. I guess this is where ‘the feeling of always lacking sth’ shows itself.
All my life I felt like I’m not enough. If I choose this topic, or maybe this one, an other one can appear in the same time and I will miss it as well.
I see life as missed opportunities, not potential experiences. I want to do everything, but I end up doing nothing.
This article is pretty interesting because it points out that the problem comes from the childhood and how we have been raised. It is very difficult to be his/her own light, and the shadow of our parents is always present.
This is why it is very important to have good friends to help us having a better idea of who we are, and not who we should be.
Good luck to everyone who struggle to find his way in this crazy times.
Thanks Maxime! I like your phrase “I see life as missed opportunities, not potential experiences” because it highlights the same process in me. Of course the weight isn’t equal: there are INFINITE missed opportunities and only ever ONE actual experience, so unless we choose to value the actual experience the weight of missed opportunities will be very, very heavy.
This article really resonated with me and came exactly when I needed to hear it, thank you! I have spent my entire life always wanting more, always setting the new goals and recounting all the things I could and would want to do, but all the time in the world would’t be enough… And also regretting and often blaming others (e.g. my husband, my parents) for all the “missed” opportunities. Until I realized that if I was really serious about something, and if I really set my mind to it, I would have made it happen – but with that many possible opportunities I have always been afraid to choose one, since that would mean putting other opportunities on hold. So I keep them all open and nothing really materializes. Or so I think… I am often afraid that I will set a bad example for my kids – the one who had big dreams and visions but never dared (or got the act together) to follow through. It’s comforting to hear that more people recognize themselves in this behavior, and that maybe we are contributing more than we are aware of.
You’re definitely not alone! So many great comments on this article have highlighted that for me too. Thank you for sharing your experience. (And I just replied to someone else about the weight of infinite missed opportunities always being greater than the single lived experience we can have, so you’re not alone with that feeling either.)
I’m also afraid to choose because of losing other options and then I end up doing nothing. And it’s not necessarily about sth huge like a career path. For me it can be even about deciding which books to read. I have so many books that I started but halfway through them I left them for another book 🙂
I can totally relate to the “I’m not enough” thing. Been beating myself up about it for decades. But the thing that jumped out at me from this article was – covid is a chance for us all to become better. It is the chance for us to look at what is REALLY important, what we REALLY want and what REALLY has meaning… to us, individually. What kind of world do we want to live in? How do we want our lives to look? How do we want our communities to run? Too many of us have lived in the dark for too long, consuming to dull the pain, working in jobs we hate to fuel the consumption. Maybe more of us will have time to look inward and make more conscious decisions. And if the outcome is talking MORE about custard, well, that has to be a good thing.
Haha, I agree! More custard for everybody 😀 But I also agree with the more important point that this is an incredible time to reflect for us all. I really hope it leads to positive change for us as individuals, and as a whole planet of people.
Dear Neil,
You may not save lives as doctors. But pour posts did help me through dark moments. If you add this up as i am certainly not the only one, you may have safed lives. We only can see a small part of our effekts, but what counts is the good spirit behind your work. That ist more important than anything anybody tells us about us. Thank you for all your help.
I so relate to this Neil. I can so easily fall into the comparing myself to other people trap, seeing them doing things and thinking “I’m not doing enough of this, or enough of that”. I think our society tends to thrive on us believing we’re always lacking as well, and so it’s even harder to think differently. But, actually what I’m realising is the only thing I’m not enough of most of the time is myself. And when I’m being myself, I’m complete as I am as you say.
Great article, Neil. Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m clearly not alone in feeling that this is a timely piece. All the best.
I think that a possible solution here is a quest for contentment. Shifting away from a perpetual need to be more and to do more, toward a deep belief that ‘I am enough’.
I listened to a Ted talk the other day and I can’t remember the title of the talk. The think that stuck was that scientists have done the math and the chances of any one person being born where, when, to what parents, with specific DNA sequence (and all the other attributes that make you you) is 1 in 400Billion. Just by existing we are a contribution and if we act on that little voice in our heads that says “I need to…” in the first 2 seconds we have that thought we will be happier and fulfilled.
I think as multipots we think in terms of rejecting an activity instead of embracing the 2 second action. Many times that action will be something like “I need to vacuum the dog hairs out of the carpet” or “I need to reconnect with ____(old friend) and has nothing to do with furthering our careers or bettering the earth (at least on the face of it)
But “on the face of it” just means we can’t perceive of any difference from where we are in this moment
Don’t you feel a a bit fulfilled when you look at the carpet you just vacuumed?
Yes!
“No creation is ever all things” – and I wouldn’t them to be as this would detract from their USP/intrigue/individuality/beauty.
Yet I do feel incomplete. It’s uncomfortable not knowing whether I’m spending my time on the ‘right’ things when there are so many options. I love the point in this article, that it’s not just the ‘things’ or outputs that matter. It’s also the ways we live, engage and express ourselves, which is a whole other layer of creativity I probably hadn’t given enough credit. thank you!
Lately I found myself immersed in my thoughts. Last weekend, I got a huge urge to watch a movie on the recommendation of a friend. So, I, who love watching several films, decided to watch the movie recommended by my friend. In the first option I thought: “This is just a children’s cartoon!” But what was my surprise when watching and paying attention to the depth of the film? I came across my inner dolls. In other words, in other words with my character traits. Better: the film helped me to see my life with different eyes. So, as a tip and I highly recommend watching the movie: “Inside Out”. This film goes to people who are curious about the wonders of the human mind.
Here’s the tip!
How magical is it that the very first post I’ve ever read in Puttylike is this?! This is just beautiful, and freeing. Thank you so much for writing this. You don’t know how much this article healed a part of my being. Might I add, Neil (if I may), that words heal. You don’t need to be a doctor to heal out there. Creativity can heal. Arts and words can heal. 🙂 Thank you again. I’m sharing this with my friends.
Thank you so much Kathrina, I’m so happy to hear that! And welcome to Puttylike, I hope you enjoy your stay and find some more inspiration 😀
Thanks Neils,
I needed this. I felt the same, so idiot me took on my old job as a behavior scientist, because of the huge amount of people who got depressed and suicidal during this pandemic. I stopped working today. And I felt like a real bitch, until I found this page. The truth is I was done with it in the first our of working there. The -oh, she is all so a published thriller writer- followed by a -must be hard to work again- hurtled my scientist-writer-musical maker-math lover- fashion designer- school director- human rights fighter-s hart. I felt that there was no place for all those scared people (they were not helped at all), or for me, in this ‘new’ world. We all have to be the same and if you’re not, you are a hopeless idiot. Now that I red your article maybe it’s the other way around. Perhaps this is the new renaissance. Old believes in authority, status and what humans are, don’t hold up anymore. It’s time to change. Time for humanity and a different concept of what humans are. Time for a new concept of health and illness. Isn’t it normal to get depressed, if you heard your hole live: learn hard, focus on one thing and make it, and it all blows up? Don’t we all need to learn that potential(s) and knowledge are never lost?
Thank You.
With love,
Mariska
Ps: trying to write in English.