I know that my current situation is good. Sure, it could be better (still waiting to hear good news from schools in my current geographic location), but at the end of the day I'll take the 4 II's that I have so far.
It's just all the judgement that's bugging me. I know I shouldn't listen to other people's opinions but I can't help it. I'm a really self-conscious person and its just the way I am/have been. For years I just have a tendency to worry myself about what others think about me and how they compare me to other people they know.
I definitely hear you. Especially when multiple friends around you won Rhodes, Soros, and other prestigious awards, and they ask you what your plans are for the upcoming year(s), it can be worse. Their ECs and numbers seem light years ahead of mine, and I feel "not good enough" for their standards or my ideals.
Here's what I did. It is all about perspectives.
1) Tell yourself that it is normal to be self-conscious and disturbing to be feeling "not good enough," because all of us here have very high standards and pursue for the best outcomes like being accepted today/this week. And when we don't meet such standards, we feel discouraged and have self-doubts.
This is a normal process. Simply take a note that you have high standards to achieve and you take things seriously about yourself. Many successful people are very critical on themselves, constantly trying to improve and change. So, it is a positive thing to set high standards. Otherwise, you wouldn't be bothered at the first place about being compared.
2) Tell yourself that we are all different, not about who is better or worse. Some people get more opportunities than others; some people get more lucky than others; some people realized certain things earlier than you did, so they perhaps made certain decisions better than you did at the time. When all things are equal and certain people did better than you, sure maybe they are better.
But in real life, you cannot have all things being equal. Different upbringings, different priorities, different resources, different labs, different connections, and so on. So, this is why people tend to say that life is not fair. Remind yourself that you did the best you can in the context of everything and other factors around you, with countless hours of hard work.
3) If it helps, don't log into Facebook or Twitter for a while. Or avoid meeting certain friends for a while.
4) This is the most important key here. I am not sure if it was from SDN or the recent books by Atul Gawande that I've read, but someone said: "My strokes in swimming were as good as others, but always I came in second because I kept looking at other lanes and see how others are doing compared to me. Here was the best advice from my coach: '
Swim in your own lane, swim your fastest and you will win.'" You need to set your own goals (shortening the time of your swim records, for example) and pursue that goal without comparing yourself to others. The moment you compare yourself to others, you are wasting your energy on something that does not matter in the end.
Let me share a story.
There was a young, Asian ballet dancer. When she was young, she moved to Germany for better education of ballet. When she got there, everyone else was better than her. She started her ballet lessons relatively late in her age, and everyone else around her were simply far more superior. She cried multiple nights and told her adviser that she doesn't belong here. She was not fluent in German at the time, so it was even more frustrating. But the adviser told her he will support her. So, she decided to stay instead of going back to her country. Every night, she practiced for multiple hours. She stopped comparing herself to others, because simply their upbringings and environments were different from hers, so it was obvious to her that they were better. So she believed that she had to make up that difference by more practice. She had injuries and cried many nights, but she didn't care. After some years, she won one of the national competitions as one of the first Asian ballet dancer in their histories.
She then realized that her sweat and tear don't lie to her. The more she practiced, the more she suffered, the more she cried and sweated, the better she became. But this feeling of being compared came back when she joined one of the most prestigious ballet group in Germany. She was relatively old among her peers, but other people's skills and talents were much ahead of hers, so she felt depressed again. One day, she realized she doesn't want to get older and older without taking any solo role in ballet performances, so she did that practice again many nights. She stopped comparing herself to others, because it was about self-improvements, not about evaluating who is better or not. Her goal was not about being better than others; it was about taking that solo role to shine on the stage. It took 5-7 years until she eventually got that solo role she wanted. After that, many national awards followed and she is probably one of the most successful ballet dancers in Germany.
If her goal was about winning a certain competition the fastest or winning a certain award at the youngest age (like getting the acceptance early for medical school), she would have been miserable and depressed. Because she knew that she wouldn't meet that goal,
not because she was not hard working but because her upbringing and opportunities available were simply different and not as resourceful as other dancers in Germany. However, her goal was rather about trying to improve herself to meet her high standards (getting a certain solo role). She did not care how long it would take to get there, but she just wanted to get there one day after improving herself. So the next step was simply to practice and practice more hours than others. Get up earlier than others, and sleep later than others.
It is all about your perspective and what your goals are.
If your goal is about getting into medical school as fast as possible and you believe that is the only criterion to decide who is better, that is an unhealthy, wrong perspective and you need to reevaluate your goal or point of view. Once you did that, everything else follows.
