I have been thinking about how my life has progressed and I feel like nothing will ever get better. I feel like I have brain damage and a flawed (or I guess not innocent) view of the world. I used to love learning but now I see everything as being unknowable or I think to myself that I'll forget 95% of what I consume. I have also been going over some of my regrets. My first one would be to have never gotten into a relationship when I was 15. I said yes way too quickly and realized I didn't want to be in a relationship with them but despite that I continued, thus making me feel like I was a bad person for not liking them as much as they liked me and making them feel like they were not worthy of someone's full attention and care. I also wish I hadn't had the "I can fix them" attitude because it never works. I wish I had just gotten a study buddy and focused on school. I do think relationships make you more humble though. They give you the opportunity to try and understand another person fully and to gain more empathy towards situations that don't occur to you personally. I don't regret my current relationship though. I feel like 19/20 is a good age but I feel like I was more advanced in life when I was 16 than where I am at now. I also don't like how I've turned out, I actually hate how I've turned out. Maybe not that much, I'm less arrogant, but I'm unable to view stuff in the same way that I used to and I don't have anything good to say most of the time. A lot of stuff in my life had been beyond my control though (hmm or is everything beyond your control in life? free will does it exist hmmm), like my parents breaking up or my father getting schizophrenia. I'm grateful I started working as soon as I was able to. I enjoy working and experience is invaluable. Hmmm I wish I had been less full of myself, I still receive notifications from Quora from IQ posts lol, I thought I was so ""different"" from others lol. I wish I hadn't tried to one-up my classmates in terms of assignments. My classmate would brag about always completing his homework at the last minute and getting 95%+ on each one of them, and so I tried copying his behaviour and failed. I have spent a lot of time with my parents these past two years, so I don't have any regrets there. I also stopped hating my mom and realized that she has done a lot for me. Someone said that you reach teenager years when you forgive your parents, and you reach adulthood when you realize that you would have been no better than your parents, that they are like you too, and that there isn't anything to forgive in the first place. Hmm I wish I had gotten diagnosed with ADHD and had access to medication earlier. Maybe I could have gotten into ivy league if I had had a clear plan and *stuck to it* instead of being all over the place. I wish I hadn't gotten so jealous about Lara getting close friends when I was in middle school. I think I put too much guilt and shame onto her and I think it probably led her to befriending/dating the wrong people aka people who made her feel like she deserved to feel bad about herself. Ummmm I think that's all (for now), essay finished.