Do watching YouTube videos make you happier or more depressed? When I watch these videos (not celebrities, mind you) but of “ordinary” people, I see so much talent- people who can sing, people who can dance, draw, play musical instruments, rap, beat-box, heck even people who speak well or people who know how to put on make-up to make themselves look like superstars (all those tutorials)! Maybe I should stop watching shows like American Idol and X-Factor…
When I look at myself, I don’t feel like I’m good at anything. I don’t have any talent. Ok, so I am relatively intelligent and I do have a brain- albeit a depressed one- but I don’t have a talent- in anything. I’m not super skilled in anything. I can’t draw, I can’t dance, I can’t paint, I can’t sing, not good at sports, not even good at decorating – heck, in those areas I’m not even decent or mediocre- I suck at all those things.
What am I good at? I have no fucking idea.
So am I destined to a boring useless life accomplishing nothing? One that slowly but surely sucks out my soul?? Destined for a life of utter mediocrity?
Do you compare yourself to everyone else?
5 comments
I know the feeling, but I also know that I have some things I’m better at than other things. It often correlates with things my parents are good at, or even my grandparents or great-grandparents.
One problem with comparing yourself to others is exactly that: your genetic makeup is different, and also the environment you grew up in. So it’s like apples and oranges. You probably enjoy different things.
The other thing is that confidence is something you get through proven performance. So if you haven’t worked at a skill, of course you’re not gonna be confident about it. You’re a newbie and it’s actually an adaptive trait to be aware of that, rather than awash with unfounded confidence.
Try googling these:
stephen guise mini habits
mating grounds confidence book notes
carol dweck mindset
Here is what I do:
I find a skill I want to work on. Then I set aside 5 minutes a day to do it. It may sound ridiculous, but try it.
There must be plenty of things that those people that you are watching on youtube must suck at, and honestly, the belief of being “talented” for something when you’re born is not all that correct. Sure, you can get genes that predispose your abilities, but without hard work that’s nothing, and it’s because of that anyone could achieve almost whatever they set out to do (regarding skill learning).
Might be wrong (i usually am), but there’s nothing written in stone regarding the “you need to achieve something big in order to justify your existence”… nope. So if you have something that you enjoy doing (which is a big part of why people learn to do stuff), go ahead and put your effort into it. You might no get fast results, but it’s a lot better than keep watching stuff and saying “man, i’ll never be able to do that”… well, if you want to, most likely you can.
You just have to find something that you love doing and devote as much time to doing that thing as possible. Which I realise is hard when you’re depressed since you feel like you don’t care about anything. I’m sure you’re skilled at something, you just need to find out what it is. And btw just because you’re skilled at something doesn’t mean it’ll necessarily take you anywhere either, there’s a huge difference between skill and talent. I can draw but I still feel like I’m nothing.
charlottevics, bah,muspelhem,Mf,
Yes you can draw, I can sing, i think everyone has some kind of talent, All the talent in the world doesn’t make you happy, just like money, of course people will say it helps, i don’t know the answer, but you have to love yourself, you can’t live just for the love of others. that doesn’t work either.
Every one in this world is talented in differnt ways u r talented u just need belive u r