My Girlfriend and I were talking about the future when we started to talk about how we both feel disappointed with the way our lives have turned out.

She has a Master’s Degree in History and used to dream of being a world respected expert in medieval Europe. Now she is 27 years old and unable to find work anywhere, even the most casual of office work.

I used to dream of being a world respected expert on insects or the Middle East and Central Asia, or of being a professional chess player. Now I am 23 years old and I have dropped out of university three times, failed truck driving school twice (although I eventually completed it), and now work as an underpaid truck driver in a rural area.

What a significant drop from where I thought I could be to where I am. How painful it is to think about those that have reached the level of accomplishment that I used to dream of and then take inventory of how my life has turned out to be. How come I have never been able to be like Magnus Carlsen? If there was anyone in the world I wish I was, it is him. He is the same age as I am and the world’s highest ranked chess player in history and the current world chess champion not to mention he has earned tens of millions of dollars in his career and looks sexy too. What did I do wrong? How come I am not him?

We both feel like our whole lives have been nothing but a continuous series of failures.