2020 Made Me a 19 Year Old Failure
By: Aum Sharda
Tags: Failure, Life, Mental Health, Students, Growth

2020 has been an incredibly tough year for all, from the ‘C-word’ to an election that divided people everywhere. This year has led people from all over the world to ask many questions about themselves and what they believe in. I am a 19-year-old, law student and this year has made me question my identity and who I am, I wanted to write this as a somewhat diary and to see whether people can relate.

Photo by Darren Halstead on Unsplash

So why have I called myself a failure?

In the span of one year, I dropped out a degree, quit my job and blew up personal relationships, and I unapologetically will blame this all on 2020. It goes without saying that that was a joke but as J Cole says behind every joke there is truth. Life of a student through the pandemic is widely known to be pretty tough, but for me, I didn’t struggle with the missing out on the social side, of the sudden turn to online teaching as much as the motivation for this work. I started as an accounting and finance student as for a long time I saw it as a ‘safe’ degree, it provided me with accreditations needed to be an accountant whilst still giving me the flexibility to branch into other areas of finance. I never disliked finance, but I had this passion for law which I told myself if it was a true passion I can switch after I get my degree, but in the madness of 2020, I said… Fuck it. Simply woke up one day and said I’m just going to take this jump and drop out my current course to do law, bear in mind I have terrible language skills and simply put am a slow reader. But 2020 taught me life is short don’t waste times doing things you’re not passionate about switch course, so I did. I am one semester deep in Law and it is HARD. I am not achieving what I once was and now I have this debate in my head is doing something you’re passionate about and achieving worse better than achieving good grades in something I wasn’t passionate about. This change in my performance has led me to this feeling of being a failure.

Photo by Siora Photography on Unsplash

Relationships are hard and 2020 was a hard year to start, without delving into the details of my relationships in the interest of privacy this year has to be unequivocally the hardest year to get a relationship to work. Dating in two lockdowns was an incredibly unique experience where the lack of physically dating and more just talking time forced relationships to accelerate so very much. By this I mean the emotional connections grew at a rate I’ve never experienced and was something extremely odd to reflect on. So why do I call myself a failure for ruined relationships, for me it comes down too emotional immaturity and as much I want to blame 2020 for making me so bored but to try seeking out a girlfriend, the issues after are mine.

I’ve spoken to friends about considering myself a failure and they all say the same thing; “you’re young”, “don’t be so hard on yourself” and when I think about it they’re right I am young only 19 hardly experienced anything in the grand scheme of things. But today in 2020, there is this pressure on all people to just have their lives together you hear stories of 19-year-old millionaires from tik tok, to 25-year olds with a real estate portfolio’s whilst having a wife and kids. All this just does make a normal average 19-year-old like me, unfortunately, feel like a failure

2021 is grind season my year :)