You are Good Enough

By: Rianne Agboola

Sometimes I feel like I'm not good enough. A common notion. Even though I've

achieved many things in life and been told I'm my own person, I can't help but

compare myself to others. Even when I don't know their background or how far

they came to get those achievements, I can't help but feel I'm not doing enough, I'm not a captain of a team. Don't have as many extracurricular. Just a failure.

Art by: Julia Marks (Official artist for Human Central)

This feeling usually comes with a sense of regret, like being bogged down on

all the clubs I wished I had stayed in when I was younger. You know, even the

other day, I wanted I kept doing ice skating lessons like I had the chance

to become a professional Olympic star. The amount of pain my legs were in,

WITHOUT FAIL, after every lesson made me hate my parents for taking me

there. It would have been a nice skill, but honestly, if I didn't drop out, I

would have just felt stuck doing something I hated.

You see the difference in myself and others is that I don't excel in anything.

I'm okay in somethings but I'm not good enough to get an award or stand

out even. I'm the dreaded word BASIC. Even while typing this, I cringe and immediately want to change the word to average because anything

is better than being BASIC. But why? Why is being basic such a problem? Why is being in the majority bad?

For me, the whole spiel of wanting to be special started with TikTok,

specifically the "Main character" and "Heather" trends. Suddenly I felt obliged to have one cleverly boxed aesthetic that dictates my life. My skinny jeans

disappeared faster than the rare ice lolly desserts my school canteen had. I

was suddenly too fat, boring, tall, and shy.

Yet I couldn't bark at a manwhen they catcalled me, so I'm not the main character. I don't have the fashion sense of a niche model, so I'm not the main character. I don't have an exciting love life or friendship drama, so I'm not the main character. At that point, it was firmly shoved to my face that I was the tall black side character in the background of all the boys I've loved before in the disco scene . I felt like I am and forever will be a background character. A set role to play to help build the main character. Never acknowledged, just used. I was not too fond of it.

Art by: Victoria Fernández

To continue this mess of an identity crisis, I stumbled across the rabbit hole of

the Myer Briggs test, and wow that was beyond a punch to the guts for me.

The personality type I was assigned was ISTJ , and me finally happy that someone could tell me who I am, I made the biggest mistake in my life. As I clicked my keys typing ISTJ on google, the words "Why are ISTJ's so boring" slapped me into another dimension. I wanted to fly into the sun and never look back. To make matters worse, I kept on digging. Found out that ISTJ's are the most common and basic type. WTH. I felt like the universe was against me. It was forever stopping me from being the main character I wanted to be.

On the other hand, my friend got the personality type related to being like a God (I wasn't surprised). But for me, to be there getting related to a CHESS PIECES while she is a whole omniprescense kind of hurt. Just a little. Maybe a lot. Having the same personality type as Kento Nanami, Haruhi Fujioka, and Mikasa did soothe the pain a little but, it was more like putting a plaster on a gunshot wound. 

At the end of the day, there will be things you are good at and something you are

not. Things are in your control and not in your control. It's impossible to be good at everything, and you're most likely to be "average". I put average in quote marks cause what may seem average to you may be someone else's great.

Give yourself credit. Stop looking at the past (or the future) and enjoy the

now.

Just being here makes you great.

You are good enough.

That sounds so sappy, but I hope this helped you even a little bit.