People from my past are progressing...i'm not!

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I found a lot of people on online social networks from my past...when I was at primary school and intermediate school.

All I can do is sit there and look at photos of them...no I am not stalking...I just can't believe how much they have changed!
For example someones profile page had a picture of them and they had changed their look and seems even their personality. They are talking about achievements in educational and personal life too.

I have not changed or progressed...I haven't made relevant achievements in educational or personal life.
People seem to be going out and having fun, I don't even know what fun is anymore...

Life doesn't seem fair...it feels like it is punishing me just because I am not "normal".

To make things worse...two people who I knew from high school came over to my house 20 minutes ago and started talking about their friends and how much fun they were having, their school exams and future plans.
I don't have any of that
I have my computer screen and friends who I talk to on the other side of the world...sure, they are great friends, but I can't see them and I hate that

I am just getting older and older...doing nothing but wasting away.

I feel the same way...
hugs

I have done that as well. What I am doing is trying to find ways to achieve things that are successful in my own unique way that don't easily lend themselves to jealously comparing myself to my former NT schoolmates.

1.- change a look?
come on! that's superficial, that's not a change or an improvement!

2- sometimes people lie.
Why? to feel superior/better

I spent plenty of time years ago thinking that if I was ever invited to a class reunion, I wouldn't go unless I had done some amazing stuff that the others would go to and think great things of me.

Then I realized that I was just playing off my own insecurities on them.

If you want to imagine that you are not making it in life because you try to compare your life with the online images from other people's lives, then you'll keep feeling as bad as you do.

I'm sorry you're hurting.

There is no good or logical reason to compare yourself in this manner, to other people.

I think the only comparison you should make is back to yourself.

Do you understand yourself better now than way back in school?

Have you done some things in life you have been happy about? Proud about?

Do you have interests that make you smile? Make you happy? Make you want to put all your attention into experiencing that interest?

I'm sure there are good qualities about you and things you have been successful at. Try to measure the positives for a while, instead of the perceived negatives.

Should a blind man be unhappy ever after he can't see? Would a cripple blame herself for not being able to sprint? You are not Forest Gump. You are you: a (very) unique person, of which there aren't many on this planet. Blind people have the unique quality that they can hear very well. And we can learn something by listening to what they have to say, because they "look" at things differently.

The sun hasn't set for you.

I was feeling that same way, after I've gone to my sister's wedding shower, last summer. All of the women between 26 and 29 have all changed since I've seen them last, about five years earlier. They were wearing fitted boob tops, bell-bottoms and long, straight hair that was mostly parted in the middle. They were also wearing make-up and they've had their nails painted. There I was with my Beatle Hair, dressed in Mod fashion. When I got home with my mum, I've told her that I haven't changed in five years, and everybody else has. I've changed since that day, in order to suit myself and not other people. Two weeks before I knew about short, chubby Sid the Belly Rubber , I've decided to be a soft-core Punker, without the piercings and the tattoos. I've been feeling a lot more mature and grown-up since I've reinvented myself, and I did it, my way.

Sid :O)

1=yes I do understand myself a little better than when I was in school.

2=No, I haven't done anything that I am proud about.

3=My interest makes me think violently and doesn't necessarily make me happy. I do want to put most of my spare time into that interest.

Brittany, I have for a long time felt the same way. But I was bitter about it because I could have progressed but was held back. Everytime I would get to where I was getting onto my feet and progressing I'd get knocked down again. I feel bad for not "moving on". But how do you move on when there is nowhere to move on to? Perhaps you should go travel, do something crazy. It is easy to get so caught in a rut, and just keep trudging along and saying, no, I can't go do this or that, I don't have the money or time or whatnot, but sometimes you have to do something drastic. The problem is that when the pain is not from some big event, but a slow wearing down until you burst, it's like the frog in a pot scenario. Drop a frog into a pot of boiling water and it will jump out violently. Put it in a cold pot of water and turn up the heat, and it will just sit there until it boils to death (I don't know this from personal experimentation by the way:) ). That's where you have to realize you've been sitting in a pot for so long that you have to make yourself get out before you boil. It can look like a lot of different things, but it has to be drastic. Something like moving to another country for a few months. See things, the huge world we live in. I think going out and hitting the road or the sea is a way to make accomplishments. Sitting in your room in front of a computer is easy, but it doesn't help.

I reached a point where I decided to say, screw trying to get a career right now, planning for it brings me no meaning. I decided to move out to Colorado after the semester ends and I graduate, and find a job somewhere. Against all expectations my family would put on me. And then I'm going to go travel around europe probably. This summer I was blessed by providence by being given a scholarship to Oxford for one semester, where I am now. It has actually been hard and lonely I will not lie. But finally I got past that and am now making much self discovery. I know for me it was just lucky I got to come here, but there are other things like it.

Another thing you have to do is get off the computer and go purposefully to find freinds. I know it's easy to say but harder to do, but you have to find at least someone to get a couple friends that can at least give you advice. I'm working on that now. And don't even try to avoid being a needy friend. I was terrified of being the needy friend for so long that I avoided asking for friendships or activities for fear of being rejected. It's better to be the needy friend and hopefully get into a social circle than to be a lonely person.

Also, try to find some living situation where you live with a group of people. Some sort of community based work or academic program. I've done that, with a church group which runs an academic camp, and it was the best thing I have ever done.

Yep, you have described me as well.

People I haven't seen since middle school reconize me with no problems. I still look about the same I guess. I too look at people I knew (or know) online, it's almost shocking how far they've come and how much most of them have changed.

The only way I can know who someone is is by hairstyle,
so the second someone gets an A-line haircut It'll take me a week to figure out who they are! O.o
and then other people I hadn't seen in a long while say "Hiya Randy!" and I'm like: "Who're you?" and they are all "You sat next to me in computer technology!" and then I know why I don't recognize them, I never paid any attention to them, lol I love Computer Tech. lol

Brittany, I know exactly how you feel...but, the greatest thing I had to learn is NOT to compare yourself to others. You are a
unique and beautiful person and it may simply just take a longer time to find your purpose in life.

Most likely, you don't have the money (and confidence) to just pick up and move to another country for three months...unless
you have rich parents and are running from the law as Alex Kelly did back in the early 1990s when he was charged with rape.
Besides, with oil now at $93. a barrel and expected to climb higher, energy costs will prevent people from flying anywhere.

Sometimes, it helps to simply look inside yourself and ask, "what is it that I really enjoy doing?" If you really can't answer that
simple question at the moment, take a walk somewhere and just enjoy the beauty of everything around you.

I live in a very economically depressed community with absolutely no good paying jobs in the area, but there are many refugees
moving into my community...most recently Burmese and soon to arrive Iraqis. With what little they have upon their arrival, they
are simply grateful to be in the USA...and are building new lives with whatever comes their way. So can you.

Happiness is like a butterfly...the more you chase it, the more it will allude you. But, if you turn your attention to others things...
it comes and sits on your shoulder.

Hey; I spy on my old classmates too! Wow; we're really alike! I Google their names and see them on class lists at colleges or in newspaper articles (for all good things). Also, I'm 19 and you're 16, and I have about the same level of education as you do, so don't be embarrassed if you are!

Same thing, everyone my age and my social strata has much better jobs than I - not to mention a much more stable social life plus "adult" interests as opposed to the teenage stuff i like doing.
Thing is, I don't recall them being smarter and those that I see now don't even seem mature if you hear the kinds of things they say. It's like they pretty much put up a yuppie facade with things big know-it-all claims on the stock market and loud conversations on fashionable places to eat sushi. Some of them remind me of American Psycho. Myself, I seem to be more comfortable spending my time with things like books, anime, working out, games - stuff I did as a teenager.
Truth is. . . they all probably do earn 3 times as much as I and I took like 2 years to get my first job after graduating. . . and I'm still at loss since I only get job offers for things worse than my current job. . . and I'm not sure if my career is going anywhere at all or what should I be doing. I feel like a total idiot - I know that technically I'm not, but that doesn't help.

Indeed, I feel I have progressed, as everyone else I knew since I was a kid, but now I see people having familys, getting married and having children. That is my ultimate dream and I fear I may never acheive it at this point...

I think you should do what you like to do in life. WHat do you enjoy doing? Life is short, and can be hard, but try to do stuff just for you.

Im sorry you feel sad, I did feel sad for quite some time at this exact thing, tho it got a little better, it still depresses me from time to time, how fast time goes, and how more limited our time is on Earth every second. Make this time count!

I so feel like this too, everybody i knew is getting married, raising kids, getting better jobs, traveling, graduating, buying, partying... meanwhile i'm still in my mothers house playing warcraft all day, jobless, friendless, lifeless.

"Hey, don't write yourself off yet
It's only in your head you feel left out or looked down on."
-Jimmy Eat World, The Middle