I do not have my shit together.

I have all the superficial trappings of a high-powered, put-together person: I get good grades, wear makeup and nice clothes when I go out in public, and walk fast all the time. I have big goals. I always have.

But lately, I tire with the limitations of fake competence.

I want to be the type of person who gets up early and goes to the gym. Who color codes a day planner. Who maintains a healthy diet, even when within smelling distance of chocolate. Who attends club meetings and enjoys talking to strangers. Who listens to rappers and moguls expound on the virtues of hard work and then works hard too.

But I am not that person. And it weighs on me.

Imposter syndrome is particularly difficult when you have never accomplished anything of societal-shaping value. Great leaders, particularly female ones, are plagued by doubt, constantly wondering whether they have tricked their onlookers into seeing greatness where there is only mediocrity.

But I am no historically significant person. How can I feel that I am underperforming in the role of “some girl on the streets of New York?”

I suppose it's because I want more. I want to be successful. There is a little voice inside me screaming that if I just publish a book, get a job, amass enough social media followers, adhere to some standard of “having it all” decided by a generation who had yet to meet mine—or worse, some standard set by a younger me, who expected so much more of us by now—then it will all matter. I will matter. And if I matter, then how I got there, whether or not it included bad habits and mistakes, is irrelevant.

I have only ever wanted to be special enough to justify being imperfect.

My soaring future plans have always been set up as consolation prizes for being firmly stuck on the ground in the present. If I could not have reality, at least I could have fantasy disguised as pending reality.

But I do not have my shit together. I will never have my shit together. Granted, maybe one day I will write a book. Probably, I will get a job. I might even start exercising regularly and waking up without first hitting the snooze button.

But then the finish line, the lowest minimum for personal satisfaction, will only move. It’s the nature of perfectionism, of existentialism, of ambition.

My dad likes to remind me that the best competitions are not between two athletes, but between one athlete and their own limitations. But I don’t want to compete with myself. I don’t want to beat my past self into submission, and I don’t want to chase my future self until I hate my present self.

So this turn around the sun, I’m not going to vow to meet my lifelong goals. I want to practice strolling through my life instead of marching. I want to enjoy the journey, not just the promise of a destination that will someday make the journey enjoyable in retrospect.

I want to be who I am, not a prototype of who I could be.