The Inner Conversation

“Everyone Else Has It Figured Out”

I went to my high school reunion in June. It may have been twenty years later, but I found myself doing the same thing I did at seventeen - scanning the room to figure out where I ranked. 

• Who looked happier, more successful, more put-together?

• Who had aged better, achieved more, seemed more confident in their skin?

Everyone looked so... settled. Like they'd found their place in the world while I was still rearranging furniture in mine.

This is the comparison trap in its most refined form: the belief that everyone else has discovered some secret manual for life that you somehow missed. 

They know how to manage money, maintain friendships, raise children, stay married, find purpose, be happy. They've cracked the code while you're still googling "how to adult" at 3am.

But here's what I noticed when I actually talked to people instead of just observing them: scratch the surface of anyone's "figured out" life and you'll find uncertainty, struggle, and improvisation. 

• The woman with the perfect career was questioning everything after her divorce. 

• The guy with the successful business was dealing with anxiety attacks. 

• The couple who seemed so solid had almost separated twice.

We're all performing competence while privately googling basic life skills. We're all making it up as we go along, then posting the highlight reel and calling it reality.

Social media has weaponized this illusion. We see everyone's carefully curated moments of triumph and compare them to our behind-the-scenes footage of doubt and confusion. 

• We see their vacation photos, not their credit card bills. 

• Their job announcements, not their Sunday night anxiety. 

• Their family pictures, not their family arguments.

The people who seem to have it figured out have just gotten comfortable with not having it figured out. They've learned to act on incomplete information, to make decisions without guarantee, to build the plane while flying it. They haven't eliminated uncertainty - they've made peace with it.

• What if the secret isn't having it all figured out, but being okay with figuring it out as you go? 

• What if confidence isn't about knowing what you're doing, but trusting you'll figure it out when you need to?

I left the reunion with a different feeling than I expected. Not intimidation, but relief. All of us - the successful ones, the struggling ones, the seemingly perfect ones - were just humans doing our best with what we had. Some were better at hiding their confusion, but we were all equally lost and found at the same time.

Nobody has it figured out. Some people are just better actors. The rest of us are learning our lines as the play unfolds, hoping we don't forget our cues, grateful for the other actors who are brave enough to admit when they don't know what comes next.

You're not behind. You're not missing something. You're not the only one winging it. You're just human, like the rest of us.

We recommend checking this book out:

Disclosure: As an Amazon Associate, we earn a commission when you click the link and finalize a purchase (At zero cost to you.). We participate in programs like these to help keep DailyMotivation free!