Quote Originally Posted by Archpaladin Zousha View Post
How can I be doing fine when dozens of others are clearly superior to me?
Because every one of those people has their own stuff they're dealing with, that's making them feel inadequate. Those in grad school? Stressed out of their minds, I guarantee it (personal, current experience). Med school? Worse, from what I've heard. Kids? Nothing but stress there. Teaching? Military? Same. Regardless of how they appear to be doing on the outside, they're dealing with crap that makes them feel useless, at least some of the time.

The difference between them and how you've come across in the last couple posts is that they're taking a deep breath, thinking about how much reward they're getting out of what they're doing,* and then figuring out what they can do to relieve that stress so they can get back to doing the very thing that causes them that stress in the first place.

tl;dr: Prioritize what you "need" to do (Panera job, volunteering job, driver's license,** etc), and figure out what you actually need to add to that (things to relieve stress) in order to retain your sanity.

* It's possible they aren't getting the enjoyment/reward they once did or that they expected to get. At that point, they can either suffer through (causing more stress and anxiety and causing problems), walk away (I have a few friends who walked out of the graduate program we're in because they decided it wasn't worth it), or look for an out (that's what I'm doing - graduating with a masters since I've already been here 2.5 years and the MS just means 1 more semester).

** Driver's license isn't entirely a necessity. I know people who are 30 who have made a conscious decision to not get their license. Not because they're in an area with good public transit, but because they decided it wasn't worth the cost/effort/etc. And as Succubus said: cars are ridiculously expensive. Even if you've planned for things like insurance, random repairs suck (I had a $1200 repair 6 months ago, triggered by a sticky brake pad on an inspection).