<i>I think I have failed myself and everyone who kept high expectations of me.</i><p>I think everybody feels that way sometimes. Don&#x27;t let it get you down.  And remember, you&#x27;re living your life for YOU, not for all the other people and their expectations.  This is one place where I&#x27;ll advocate going in for some good old-fashioned Nietzsche&#x27;an &#x2F; Ayn Rand&#x27;ian selfish &#x2F; self-centered thinking.  Be the center of your own universe and quit giving a fuck what anybody and everybody else thinks.<p>You&#x27;re a fucking badass.  Why? Because you said so.  Because you <i>chose</i> to be.  Yes, you did, just now, I heard you.  Trust me.  I hear things.<p>Choice is everything.  Remember the end of The Matrix:Revelations?  When Agent Smith is taunting Neo, asking, &quot;Why, Mr. Anderson? Why do you keep getting back up? You know you can&#x27;t win, why keep getting up&quot;?  And Neo just looks back and says &quot;Because I choose to&quot;.  That is one of the most powerful scenes in movie history, because it reflects such a powerful truth about the real world.<p>Choice.<p>It&#x27;s your life and you can choose to be happy, or choose to be miserable.  It&#x27;s all down to how you chose to see, hear, feel and interpret things.  You can focus on the negatives our you can focus on the positives. Your move.<p>Seriously, I can&#x27;t <i>make</i> you think like this, but I&#x27;m trying to point something out, a very basic, fundamental truth...  your happiness, your contentment, your state of mind, it comes from within. It isn&#x27;t about how much money you have, what kind of car you drive, or how many girls your boning.   You get to choose to be happy, to be content, to be whatever-the-fuck-you-want-to-be... every day.<p>So you don&#x27;t have all the &quot;stuff&quot; you want yet? Fine, remind yourself <i>both</i> that it&#x27;s OK, that what you have doesn&#x27;t define you AND remind you&#x27;re self that you are a bad-ass, and you&#x27;re still on the way up.  You are a conquering machine, and you will be on top of the world before you&#x27;re done.  Don&#x27;t just say it, KNOW it.  You have the world by the balls, now take that motherfucker and squeeze until it hurts, and show it who&#x27;s in charge.<p>Just remember this, when things are tough... you can have your dreams, but NOBODY said it would be easy.  OK, there WILL be adversity and tough times.  That&#x27;s OK, the adversity is what makes your story a story worth telling.  You think bards would sing songs about a Prince who&#x27;s born with a silver-spoon in his mouth, sits around being pampered until he&#x27;s 18, then walks next door to the neighboring castle and says &quot;Can I marry the beautiful Princess?&quot; and she comes running out yelling &quot;oooh, I live you, I love you so much&quot; and then they are married the next day, have a couple of kids a year later, and then live happily ever after?  Fuck no, that story is fucking boring.   The stories people want are about the stable-boy who falls in love with the princess, but can&#x27;t even get near enough to her to talk to her, and then she gets kidnapped by the Evil Dragon, and then he has to steal a an old, broken-down, half-lame horse, a rusty suit of armor that&#x27;s full of holes, a broken sword, and then go off to try and rescue the princess... and of course his horse dies halfway in the middle of nowhere, it&#x27;s freezing cold, with brutal, nasty, driving rain and sleet falling, and he&#x27;s freezing nearly to death in the wastelands, with no food and no help, but he keeps fighting and fighting and through grit and determination and pride and love manages to make his way to the lair of the Evil Dragon, and... well, you get what I mean.<p>So, what story do you want to be part of?  The one where everything is just handed to you and everything is perfect and nice and sweet and easy and everybody gets a pony? Or the one where some bad shit happens and you will your way through, over, or around the obstacles?<p>Oh, and listen to some good music too. Good music always helps lift your spirits.  Here&#x27;s something to get you started:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WtuoFv4dcwM" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=WtuoFv4dcwM</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=EhGEGIBGLu8" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=EhGEGIBGLu8</a><p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=CmXWkMlKFkI" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=CmXWkMlKFkI</a>