The miserable bit is more past tense. Back in college I desperately wanted to have the academic success that my friends were having but I had never built that g

The miserable bit is more past tense. Back in college I desperately wanted to have the academic success that my friends were having but I had never built that groundwork of organizational habits and consistency. I remember not doing any of the homework for my measure theory course, and getting an uncurved 50% on the midterm. I went into the professor's office hours to ask if I needed to drop the course, and he told me I had actually gotten a B and I was above the class average. There was this deep sense that I could've been a star student if I could just get my shit together. Nowadays I'm generally happy and living a great life in a New Zealand mountain town. But, whenever I talk to anybody back home who's more academically successful, I really have this jealousy and I tell myself that I could've done that if I'd just tried. It's this combo of ego and self hate that's really toxic.