i am not smart

12/29/2024

I am very scared for my future.

Every writer is either so smart and prolific that they went to an ivy league or so smart and prolific that they didn’t go to school and made it anyway because of how smart they are.

And that fear isn’t going to stop the smart people from graduating and the time that’s passing is only more time that I’m not writing anything good.

If you aren’t born smart you have to be born ambitious. But what if you’re somewhere in between? I am scared that I got all the passion and none of the talent. I want a beautiful life and I want to work hard at something I’m good at, but with everything

I’m very scared that I’m not talented enough. Working towards talent is a very intimidating, daunting, nauseating, [other adjective to prove my knowledge and access to a thesaurus], fucking annoying thing.

For now I will ty my best, but I don’t know what my future hold. I am so passionate about so many things, that’s why I chose my communications major. I could be a writer, a stylist, a journalist, a video editor, a social media intern, an assistant, a barista, unemployed.

And yet writing and media is always at the core of these potential careers, and that scares me. I have to remind myself that I am young and there is so much ahead of me. But more accurately my friends remind me of this. Most of the time I’m just terrified. Every time I see a new show or a new it girl the fear grows. It festers within me like a pimple I can’t seem to shake.

I’m scared that I just swap adjectives for smarter sounding ones.

And that I’m not as smart as I want to be. And should be.

There is no conclusion. As is with life. I carry on, trying my best every day, never knowing what’s around the corner. When I look at it positively, it’s exciting to have so much possibility and promise, as I consider myself adaptable and having as many interests as I do. But it’s not always easy to see this, the unknown, as a playground of opportunity when I feel like I’m running out of time because everyone else is doing what I want to do before me, and when I get to the point where I have to start a career all the good ideas will be taken and I won’t have the ability to produce new and exciting ideas. I feel hopeless. Then I remind myself that I’m making these feelings up, talking myself down from the ledge of a wall I build myself. Then two friends tell me they didn’t even know the school we all go to even had a magazine or a newspaper because no one reads magazines anymore. And I decide to drop working on pieces for said magazine to focus on school instead of trying to contribute to making magazines readable again. Suddenly the bottom of a pit is calling out to me.

I am scared that I am not smart enough for my dreams. A competitive, cutthroat future awaits everyone in nearly every industry as the population just continues to rise and rise. I’m very scared that I’m not smart enough for the future I want and that I will never get it. Maybe I will…and maybe I won’t. All I can do is hope.

And write.

xoxo