Other people's (specifically friends' or acquaintances') success(es) will be the death of me I swear.

Fucking hell, I'm 19 already. Nine-teen. One year away from the big 20. Or less than that, actually. FUCK. I know that age shouldn't be something you compare against to measure how much you've achieved so far, but hell it's the biggest/most relevant benchmark for me okay don't ask why it just is. And like, I'm genuinely concerned about the future right now. Like, a lot. I know that I've touched on this in my previous post already, but that was a fairly light-hearted post. This is the real deal. Like, I feel my anxiety pangs catching on to me again. In my previous post I was merely stating the facts. In this one I actually dug deep and looked up TONS of other photographers' online - their portfolios, achievements, works, etc. And compared to them I am nothing. I am inferior. Their photos... I can't even begin to describe... Sigh. I wish I had someone to rant to about my general worries/concerns regarding the future and work-related stuff. For instance, you need to be good with people in this industry. You gotta be fucking social. You gotta get out there and make those connections, be the life of the party, the cream of the crop, know what I'm saying? And me? Where the fuck does that leave me? People who actually KNOW me in person know for a fact that I am the LEAST sociable person around. I hate interacting. I hate making conversation. It's just so hard, I don't know. I hate having to put in effort to make these connections. Most times there's always some sort of politics/miscommunication involved and I fucking hate that. There is probably nothing worse than that, truly. Trust me, I've had my fair share of experience dwelling in the "social" aspect of the scene. It is NOT a pretty sight. Well, to me at least. Ugh. Can I please consider this a quarter-life crisis? It's like, I feel I HAVE the necessary talent/skills to take my photography to the next level and actually make some money out of it. Y'know, a real job? I feel like I'm just hanging in between. Like as if I'm trapped between amateur-professional limbo. Stuck in the middle. I don't know how else to put it. I just don't know HOW to proceed from here. Ugh. Clock's ticking, Josh. Soon enough, before you even realise it's happening, you'll be donning your graduation cloak and enlisting for the army. Then what? Then what. That really is the question here, innit? Sigh. I don't think I've ever typed this much in one sitting, omg.

*update*
lol, throwback to this very day exactly a year ago - talking about how ticked off i was for not being able to attend the baybeats budding photog programme. what a coincidence, i just had 2 cigarettes in a row, again. last year i had 3. lol. fyi i did apply again this year. but i'm not gonna get into that. just pretty bummed i didn't get selected this year. i was so sure i'd be chosen again. guess i was too over-confident eh. sigh. that's actually another one of the causes for my distress right now. the fact that the previous batch of baybeats photographers (aka my "friends") are all getting on with their lives and progressing further. and me? i'm stuck here, seemingly going nowhere. sigh. idk.

As my final year in poly draws closer to its end, the reality of my future starts to hit harder - and that's a fact. I've been asking myself more and more each day: "What the hell are you gonna do once poly is over?" And I basically draw a complete blank. I realise that despite me being fairly confident in my photography career (or hopeful is the word I'd use, actually), I don't actually know what EXACTLY I'm going to do. Like, specifically. And this worries me. A lot sometimes. Sigh. This is only the work-related side of my general worries about the future. I do have conflicting, personal worries too, obviously (as you probably would've already gathered from my somewhat cryptic posts - to whomever out there that still actually reads all these). Ugh. Is this really what growing up's all about? How do you make it stop. I really haven't a clue how to go on from here. Then there's army too. UGH. As if things aren't bad enough as they are already. Sometimes I really think the only way to escape all this is literally just to escape. TRAVEL. See the world. Get the fuck outta this shithole. And believe me, I've been trying to accommodate for as many vacations/getaways as I possibly can before graduating. Sigh. But it's so hard. Maybe I'm just at that age, y'know? I don't even know what age I'm referring to exactly or what that 'age' denotes/indicates but... yeah. I don't know. Does this count as a quarter-life crisis or something of the sort? Fucking hell, I hate dealing with all this shit.