Date: April 29, 2025

Author: Thomas Greene

I’ve been hiding behind a wall of excuses for so long, but recently, I’ve come to realize the truth. Underneath all my delusions and ego, I am nothing more than a loser. It’s hard to admit, but it’s the reality I’ve been avoiding for years.

When I take a step back and look at myself, I see it clearly. The house I built out of pride and arrogance? It’s not a house at all. It was never solid, never real. It was just a pile of loose bricks stacked on top of each other, held together by nothing more than flimsy fantasies. I never actually put the effort into building anything of substance. It was all a show—a way to convince myself I was capable of greatness without ever really doing the work.

For most of my life, I’ve coasted by, floating through everything with minimal effort. Academics, for example, came easy to me. I breezed through school with honors, winning praise and accolades. I didn’t have to try that hard to succeed. Everything felt effortless, and I convinced myself that I was destined for something big because of that. But then college came along, and suddenly, I was faced with the reality that I actually had to try.

I didn’t want to try. I was scared of failing. What if I put in the effort and it still wasn’t good enough? So, I didn’t. I stuck to my comfortable, lazy ways, thinking I could keep riding the wave of my past successes without any real consequences. But the consequences caught up with me. I failed. I had to transfer out of my first college because I didn’t put in the effort. I didn’t care enough to make it work, and it showed. Now, I’m stuck. I’m not on track to become the ambitious doctor I once dreamed of. Instead, I’m on track to be just another college dropout, or worse, someone who’s barely scraping by with a psychology degree that will sit on a shelf collecting dust.

I’ve gotten into this habit of coasting, putting everything off. “I’ll do it tomorrow,” I say, or “I’ll catch up next week.” But the problem is, next week never comes. There’s always a reason to wait, always a reason to avoid the hard work that needs to be done. I’ve been living my life in a state of complacency, with no real sense of urgency. Why should I push myself when I can just keep putting it off? But I’ve learned the hard way that doing nothing gets me nowhere.

And now, here I am. Looking at a future that isn’t nearly as bright as I once imagined it. I’ve wasted time, ignored my potential, and let my fear of failure dictate my every move. And for what? To feel comfortable? To avoid discomfort? It’s laughable, really.

I don’t know where to go from here, but I can’t keep lying to myself. I have to take responsibility for where I’ve let myself fall, and I have to figure out how to build something real, even if it means starting from scratch. Maybe I can’t fix everything, but I can start by tearing down the walls of this fake house I built in my mind and try to build something that actually matters.

It’s time to stop pretending I’m destined for greatness just because things came easy for me. It’s time to actually try. Maybe, just maybe, that’s the only way out of this hole I’ve dug for myself.