Positive attitude, negative thinking

I guess it's been a while and I've been a busy bunny. Work related mostly although I did go to my friend's music gig last week. It's amazing to me how a person so talented can be so pessimistic about his talent. God, I don't know if I'm talking about him or myself. Because lately I find myself feeling frustrated and often annoyed, well more than usual anyway, over the smallest things. The truth is I'm feeling the pressure of "making it" as a writer and considering I decided to drop out of college, I guess I'm anxious about what will happen in the future. I'm always thinking and stressing myself out and it's like my mum always jokes when I tell her I'm thinking, she says "don't hurt yourself". I see people, my friends, doing so many things and accomplishing even more as we speak, learning foreign languages, getting degrees, continuing their studies abroad, traveling, and I'm starting to feel slightly depressed, feeling like a loser. I was studying Art History before I made a conscious decision to leave because I had gotten most of what it had to offer and no longer felt I belonged. In fact, ever since the beginning I never felt I belonged. I hated that school and almost everyone in it. Furthermore while I enjoy studying the subject as a hobby, I am certain that is not what I want to do with my life. I don't regret my decision, but I wonder if I should be doing something else. If I had the financial means I would go to another college and maybe one day I will. But is money the issue or am I being lazy? Am I less than perfect? Am I daydreaming? Or am I just afraid of living outside the comfort zone? So many people never leave their comfort zone, while I decided not to live there in the first place. Is that wise?  I mean I don't doubt my abilities as a writer nor do I not know what I want to do with my life. I guess I always knew I wanted to be a writer. Ever since I could write I was writing poems and stories and songs. It's just that sometimes I don't know exactly how to get there. I suppose for my age I've been doing a pretty good job, with my articles being published and now writing and editing a book for a famous chef and having completed an early draft for my own novel. But I worry, as my dad says, when do my smarts run out? Is talent really enough to make it? I guess in his opinion, as an artist himself, no. I'm not determined to prove him wrong, I'm determined to prove my own fears of failure wrong. I'm good at giving other people optimistic advice, like my crazy-talented friend with the amazing voice, who one day is going to be a very famous musician, even if he doesn't believe it now, or another friend who always wanted to be a dancer and so I told him "go be a dancer". And you know what? He did! Somehow though I fail to take my own advice. I've talked to people who are so anxious because they have no idea what they want to do in their lives and they say I'm lucky because I already do. I say to them "do whatever makes you happy until you can find the thing that you can also make a living out of", no matter how long it takes. So why is it that I feel so small when I'm actually doing what makes me happy? I think society's idea of what a 20-something should be doing, getting a degree, a job, having everything figured out has been etched into my brain. Or maybe it's what I think I should be doing. Perhaps I'm the one putting pressure on myself to be what I think others will find acceptable. In many ways, my own thoughts are what is holding me back from realizing my potential. Maybe yours are what's doing it for you.