Are you the person you're meant to be?

[HighlandWorrier]

Or in other words have you lived up to your potential?

For me, I missed out on a potential musical career which may have given me fame and fortune, something I wanted from a very young age. I was in the right place at the right time but messed up the opportunity through reckless behaviour.

One the one hand I am gutted I didn't make the most of their chances at the time and on the other I'm resigned to maybe it wasn't meant to be. Although I'm generally happy in life with a good DH and lovely kids a part of me is restless as I didn't do with my life what I really wanted to / should have.

Anyone else thinking wistfully of how their life could have turned out?

I don't think its a valid question.

In your case yes you might have taken that opportunity but then maybe that success got you into an overwhelming spiral of drug taking and partying which left you dead a few years later. Or something else. There's never one decision that commands our whole fate but a myriad of different ones.

Meanwhile any decision we make was the decision right for us at the time. If I had understood myself better age 18 I would have chosen a different university course. If I had worked harder academically my life might have been very different. But I am who I am and the versions of me that made different choices wouldn't have been me.

Most of my alternate lives would likely be worse than the one I have now! I really like my life and I can't see anything in the past that, had I done differently, would have improved it. Even bad experiences taught me valuable lessons. i have no regrets.

So much more than I used to be.
Not as much as I will one day be.

Multiple chronic illnesses have stopped me doing many things I want to. I definitely didn't envisage spending most days bed bound after graduating with an honours degree.
I worked extremely hard and earned a 1st - without sounding vain, feeling like I could be doing much more with my life has felt like grieving for my own potential and could-have-been life

I obviously would have been different if I had grown up in a home where domestic violence and abuse wasn't the norm. And all of that did impact me- including the standards I accepted for myself from friends and boys.

But I can let go of that version of me as she never existed.

I am where I am now. If I had known better I would have done better.

I sometimes wonder who I would have become if I had grown up in a 'good enough' family, and had not been prevented from seeing my father after my parents divorce or suffered sexual, physical and severe emotional abuse during my childhood which had a major impact on my self esteem and sense of self. I'm basically a recluse due to an anxiety disorder when I know I could have achieved so much more.

Some interesting perspectives. Sorry to those who feel held back by health issues makes my own thoughts seem a bit selfish now

Not at all. I missed out on so much. I’m not sure why but even way back, staying on and doing A levels was never even an option (bullying, no family support). It’s always been the same in my life.

I’m not.
Had I not chosen my path, I believe I would have been stuck in a factory or as a chamber maid in a big hotel working my star off for little money with not much of a life.
However, from somewhere I got an urge to follow my career, I worked hard, studied hard and became very successful.

Then I had a baby. A very unexpected but very long awaited and much wanted baby. The impact of this derailed me professionally and ended in me stepping down and out of my beloved career.
I have never recovered.
I don’t think that I ever will.
I have my child, who I can spend time with and enjoy now.

I think I could've done better had I had parents who installed a bit of drive in me, instead I was never told I could do or be whatever I wanted. I kind of feel I'm a bit of a burden now as I've got no qualifications and can't really earn decent money at all.

When I graduated I had dreams but easily had my confidence knocked applying for jobs and didn't know what I wanted to do. I was also so scared of making the wrong decision that I couldn't commit to anything.

I wish I'd had more confidence at that stage

I'd say no due to health reasons
but I think I'm still very lucky how things have turned out.

I have been very lucky and have a lovely life. No money, and likely to never have any, but have my health and my families health, so we'll be alright.

Agree with previous posters. I should have handled being at university better- taken advantage of the opportunity properly, thrown myself into it, stuck it out when it got a bit hard/boring. If I’d done that, I probably would have got a “proper” job with a career path much more quickly, and my 20s would have been easier and more fun in many ways. But I probably wouldn’t have met my husband, or most of my closest friends, and I don’t want to change that. And I also don’t hate myself or my life, so I can’t regret the path that brought me here.

I haven’t achieved much, if anything in life, I often think I’d be incredibly forgettable should I die but I don’t feel like I missed an opportunity I just feel like I was never meant to amount to much regardless iygwim

I’ve made peace with that now

Oh that's sad lego but kind of relate to that feeling of being forgettable when you die :-(

I think if I had been encouraged and pushed more at school I might have achieved more but I've done well given I was always seen as the 'thick' one.

I'm proud of my 17 year old self for recognizing I needed to move away from my hometown. Moved for university and my life changed forever. I've now got a fairly successful career and I am very content. I know for sure I never would have fulfilled my potential if I had stayed around my hometown.

That view of me as the thick one did so much damage to my self esteem. It was only moving away that made me realize that's not how others see me.

Yes, think I'm the person I was meant to be. DM wanted me to stay in home town, leave school at 16 and work in a bank, marry a local boy.
Instead did A Levels, teacher training, lived and taught in London and abroad and met DH abroad.
Had fantastic life with DH, foreign postings, two great children.
Both of us came from council house, working class homes, very little money, and what we achieved has been through our own hard work.

I am completely different to how I had imagined.

Because things have happened that we’re beyond my control that have been life changing in extremely traumatic ways that have led to a completely different outlook. In a positive way.

I’m who I’m meant to be now, I’m sure. It’s just not what I had predicted.

Doesn’t mean I have done everything yet that I want to do in this life. Far from it. It’s a work in progress and I won’t rest on my laurels.

The flipside is it could have been worse, never going to uni and staying in my home town longer term would have ruined my life completely