When your worst case scenario happens
Today I’m telling you a story I’ve never shared publicly about when something in my life went horribly wrong.
When I was in high school, like many first born overachieving type-A daughters, it was my DREAM to go to an ivy league school. You have never met a more driven individual than young me, and this obsession goes way back.
Case in point: when I was in kindergarten I remember getting some cash for Christmas. When my Tita asked me what I was going to spend it on, I told her I was saving it for college. I was five years old. (What a weirdo!) In high school I was VP of the student body, president of multiple clubs, and I volunteered hundreds of hours at the local hospital, all while having an above 4.0 GPA; I did everything in my power to be a star student and boy, I was EXTRA in every way.
When the time came to apply for universities, I applied to something like 13, which was a lot back then. I applied to all of the ivies and threw in a couple of non-ivies (UC’s) as backups.
When those decision letters started coming in the mail, I got rejected from ALL BUT TWO.
Cue: Panic. Shrieking. Horror. And so many tears.
…What in the world would my future look like if I didn’t go to an ivy league school?
…Who would I be if I didn’t go to a TOP university?
…My life was certainly over and I would never be able to be a “success.”
Spoiler: Things ended up ok. But if you’d asked me back then, my life was completely over and there was no hope of a viable future for me.
I recognize now that this seems a bit dramatic (I was 17 after all) but if you’ve ever had your worst case scenario in life happen, then you know it’s a unique feeling of complete and utter devastation.
So… what happened next?
And if you’re going through your own worst case scenario, I’ll share what you can do too.
I realized I had wrapped my entire identity around getting an ivy league education. And while there’s nothing wrong with having big dreams, I was selling myself short with everything outside of those dreams coming true.
When you have your heart set on something, it can be utterly devastating when that something doesn’t happen the way you want it to. It can feel like your life is over and that you’ll never be able to have anything good happen to you in life ever again.
But the reality is that while experiencing these worst case scenario moments in life can really suck, they have little to no bearing on the goodness in life that’s still possible for you to have. In other words: no tragedy is so bad that you can’t find your redemption arc through it. Aka these hardships can be a tiny blip in an otherwise incredible life.
By the way, after I cried rivers and oceans and thought I’d never survive, I took that devastating moment of rejection, wrote a heartfelt appeal letter to UC Berkeley, and got accepted as a spring admit to the #1 public university in the world. I appreciated it that much more since I almost didn’t get to go, and going to Berkeley was an unforgettable and formative experience where I met some of the most impactful people in my life to this day.
But most importantly, things ended up ok.
And, in case it wasn’t obvious, my life was far from the marred existence I feared it would be when I was 17 and a reject of 11 universities.
I’ve experienced a couple of “worst case scenario” moments in life since then (a toxic workplace, the loss of a sibling, a devastating breakup after a 7-year relationship, severe burnout leading me to question all my life choices as an early career therapist, and many, many other forms of grief along the way) and lived to tell the tale. If you’re going through your own worst case moment, here are three things that helped me that might help you:
Remember you have survived all of your toughest moments.
There may be a day when one day you’re so far removed from what you’re going through now that you have to try really hard to even remember the details of what happened. That your life will be so full of unexpected joys and goodness that you never planned on, that this moment may not even be a noteworthy speck of a memory when you look in the rear view mirror a few months or years from now. You will grow around the grief if you let yourself. Perspective is everything - what feels like everything to you right now will be .00001% of your life years from now.
The bad feelings will go away eventually.
When we’re in a low moment, a funk, or even a full on depressive episode, it can feel like there’s nothing else. We always were depressed and always will be. Our life currently sucks and it always has and always will. But this is one of the ways our mind can play tricks on us. The reality is that NO low moment lasts forever, just like no high moment lasts forever. Highs and lows are fleeting moments, not permanent ones. Trust that if you’re feeling despair and think that it’s never going to get better - it’s a lie and it most certainly will.
You haven’t even experienced all the best moments of your life yet, not by a long shot.
There is MORE good stuff in your future - more people to meet who you will love, more people who will love you, more wonderful surprises that’ll have you scratching your head in disbelief, more delicious delights, more than you can possibly plan on, more than you can consciously have control over. There will be puppies, and sun peeking through on days where it was supposed to rain, and funnel cakes. There will be money that comes in that you didn’t expect, travels to places you didn’t even know existed a year ago, and so much laughter. There will be confidence in places where you used to carry insecurity, certainty in places where you used to feel unsteady, abundance in places you used to feel scarcity. There will be new dreams in your heart and new yearnings for something you don’t yet have, and unforeseen aches for the people and things you loved that aren’t here anymore. You might decide to learn how to skateboard in your 60s, or to become a parent in your 40s, or to leave it all behind and move to a new country in your 50s. The possibilities are -literally- endless. There will be new sights, new smells, and new tastes, a million different “life-gasms” that will leave you basking in the glow of your wonderful existence. In other words, the universe has more up its sleeve for you that isn’t in your field of vision yet, so get ready for it. And trust me when I say that even if you can’t see it, the goodness that is meant for you cannot be taken from you.
So if this is you and you’re going through your worst case scenario season, please, hold on, for just a little while longer. There is so much more worth waiting around for.
BTW, my mission is help people love their lives so they never want to leave them.
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