So I don't like to talk about myself too much but I would just like to share a story about the past year about my University experience in the hope that I can help out others who are also dealing with similar issues, mostly concerning self worth and seemingly hopeless situations.

Long story short, first semester in University was very rough on me. I was freaking out about my marks, I was too shy to make any friends, my anxiety made it hard to calm down when I got home and at one point I passed out during class from stress. I felt like I was fighting a desperate war and losing terribly, I just could not seem to do anything about the situation and any attempt to make a major change just feel through the next day because I could not get the motivation to make any changes. I spent far too much time playing video games in an attempt to escape from all the stress but that just made things much worse.

Semester 2 rolled around and I tried to make sure things would go well but the first few weeks went rough so I felt like the whole semester would go down just like the first one. It got so bad that I would end up crying in class multiple times a week because I felt everything was falling apart and there was nothing I could do about it. I then decided that it was really time to fix this mess so I went to a councler for help and stayed at school for up to 12 hours a day to study like my life depended on it. In the short run I felt good but after a few days I felt disparaged again because I could not finish my work even when I spent so much effort on it. In hindsight: studying for 10+ hours a day is very ineffective since you will become so tired that nothing you study will be retained and you will just wreak yourself for minimal gain.

However, about 2 weeks ago something changed. I was up late watching videos of video games to try to calm myself down before I went to bed when in the comment section I heard somebody say that another YouTuber was having emotional issues so I went over to try to give some advice because for some reason I have a really strong drive to help out others who are going through stuff like that. In summary, he had a panic attack about stomach pain which caused him to freak out beyond beleaf for days on end. This kind of thing had happened to me years ago were I went nuts over not being able to sleep which caused me to panic and cry for hours on end. I basically told him that you will be OK so there is no need to worry about it, help is out there so nothing bad is going to happen to you. The comment got buried in the end so I doubt it helped in any way... at least it did not help the person it was intended for.

This really stuck with me for the next few days, the fact that somebody just about fell apart over something that really was not a major issue at all. In the same period I got my last semesters marks back which I was neither happy nor sad about since I did not fail anything but they were lower then my high school marks so I was not happy about it. The wake up call however was when I got my Accounting midterm back. The mark was fairly lower then my normal high school marks so I was kind of annoyed at it. However, I soon found out that that "bad mark" was 22% above the class average and that it was the 4th highest out of a class of 40. I was almost in shock and for the first time that year I was overwhelmed with happiness instead of sadness and despair. I then started to realize that my other marks from last semester were not bad either after seeing how low some of the class averages were. Some of the marks that I saw as being sucky were also 10-20% above average in some cases.

Yet all this time I had been telling myself that I was doing awfully academically and that I needed to improve. The fact that I could not bring my marks up in the past almost tore me apart coupled with the fact that I had no friends at all. My viewpoint was just so badly biased that I thought I was doing terribly when in fact I was still above average most of the time. This coupled with the YouTube incident changed my viewpoint right around. I thought I was fighting a desperate war and losing when in fact I was fighting a war and actually winning, HQ was just looking at the worst battles and not paying attention to the smashing victories that occurred much more often then the minor defeats. This sounds kind of silly but my obsession with military stuff makes me think up stuff like this all the time.

Things were looking up already but this week my councler pointed out that my sleep schedule (which was in shambles) might be causing my lack of energy. He gave the excellent piece of advice that I really need to get up at the same time every day and I need to stop using screens an hour before I go to bed. I followed this and things improved almost imediently, getting up at a good time every day is absolutely key and having an inconsistent sleep schedule can make your body feel tired a lot since it is not sure when it will get the chance to get sleep next (at least that is what appeared to happen in my case).

Probably the thing that made the biggest difference though was what I told myself. Before now I kept telling myself that I needed to work harder whenever I did not do something perfectly and that I needed to improve all the time since I am just not up to par with others. If I did something well then OK, that is good enough but you still have a mountain of other things you need to do better so get a move on! This does not help at all and just made me feel awful most of the time. These past few weeks however I have tried to tell myself that I can do it and that the situation is going well so even if I don't do excellently it is not the end. If I do something good I try to think of how great it is and get excited about it since it is proof that I am improving and succeeding after all.

This week has been the best since I started University by far. I have been extremely motivated to get work done and have hardly even thought of playing video games since I have been so occupied with school work which I have now told myself is going well. If you think you are doing a good job at something then it is much easier to work on it so doing studying is bearable. My anxiety about school work has also calmed down so I can talk to people properly now without having to worry about school stuff all the time. I am just overall much more happy then before and I do not feel tired much anymore which also feels great.

Overall, if you just feel totally useless or that things are just going up in flames just remember that we can be really negative about new situations sometimes. Never tell yourself that you are useless because that will not help anything and make you feel even worse. If things seem really bad then just look on the bright side as much as you can even if things appear bleak because sometimes our perspectives can just bend us towards irrational viewpoints. This may seem like common sense I suppose but for me anyways things have just improved so much because of this change in mind set. Very little has changed external situation wise but I feel like everything has changed internally which can make all the difference sometimes.