I have always been a chronic overachiever. Like the kind of person who color-codes their planner, maxes out their credit load, joins every club that even vaguely aligns with a future LinkedIn headline and spirals if a professor takes more than 48 hours to grade an assignment. If there was a gold star to earn, I found a way to slap it on my forehead. Validation? Addictive. Achievement? Oxygen.
And still—still—I feel behind. Behind the girl in my class who landed a D.C. fellowship. Behind the boy who started a business sophomore year and now gives TED Talks. Behind the quiet genius who’s graduating early and already has a job offer from Google. Behind the girl from high school who got married, bought a house, and just posted her baby’s first Easter pics.
Behind people I haven’t talked to since 2019, behind the younger students in my major, behind the versions of myself I thought I’d be by now.
It’s not logical. But it’s there.
And the worst part? It’s sneaky. It doesn’t yell. It whispers. It shows up in little ways—when I refresh my resume for the fourth time in one week, or stare at someone’s Instagram story a second too long, or say “I’m proud of you” while secretly wondering if I’ll ever catch up.
Comparison is a thief. But in college? It’s a whole gang of robbers. It steals your joy, your rest, your ability to look at your own damn life without measuring it against someone else’s curated highlight reel.
But here’s the truth: There is no one right timeline.
College is not a conveyor belt. Life is not a syllabus. Some people take four years, some people take five and some people realize halfway through year three that their dream job doesn’t require a degree at all. Some people live on campus and love it. Some commute, work full-time and cry in between shifts. Some people figure themselves out in the first semester. Others — most of us — are still trying to get there by graduation. And some of us might not get there until long after.
There’s so much you can’t see on a transcript. You can’t see who battled anxiety and showed up anyway. You can’t see who went through a breakup, lost a loved one, had to work double shifts just to stay enrolled. You can’t see the strength it takes to stay in a class that makes you feel stupid—or the strength it takes to finally drop it. You can’t see the healing that happens when you stop chasing someone else’s finish line.
And here’s the part I want you to hear the most. Even if you are the hardest-working person you know. Even if you’re holding down three jobs and fifteen units and still managing to answer emails with “Sorry for the delay” even though it’s only been four hours. Even if you’re producing morning shows, running student orgs, helping your friends through their breakdowns, all while quietly having your own—
You are not behind.
You’re just on a timeline that doesn’t look like theirs. And maybe it’s not supposed to. Maybe it’s not broken—it’s just brave.
Because you’re still here. Still showing up. Still dreaming. Still trying. And that counts for something. That counts for a lot.
So when you feel the shame spiral starting—when you start thinking, “I should be farther along,”
try to meet that voice with a different one: “I am exactly where I need to be.”
Not everyone’s path is straight. Some of ours are winding, bumpy and uphill. Some of us make pit stops. Some of us double back. Some of us take a little longer to bloom. But bloom we do.
And when you look back—really look—you’ll see: You weren’t behind. You were just becoming.
Maybe you didn’t fall behind at all. Maybe you just… fell apart for a second.
And next week, we’re going to talk about what happens when falling apart looks like failing. When it’s not just a dropped opportunity or a messy semester—but a class you actually fail. A GPA you can’t hide. A moment when you don’t bounce back right away.
Because you can flunk something and still be worthy. You can disappoint yourself and still come back from it.
So come back for part five:
“Failing a Class Doesn’t Mean You’re Failing at Life.”
And hey – If no one else claps for you this week, I will.
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Confessions of a Hot Mess is the personal work of Emily Hess. The opinions expressed in this column, as well as those published in The Nevada Sagebrush, are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Sagebrush or its staff.
