Essay: What it means to be the worst person in the world

Sometimes I think I am the worst person in the world.

The longer I think about it, the more I start to realize that we all are. We jump from main character to spectator back and forth, constantly search for our place in this universe while craving unlimited validation and search for that one person who steps into our lives and assures us that it’s okay to keep reinventing ourselves. There is no need to turn the light switch off and watch other people stand still, while still trying to play a role. We are neither an observer, nor a supporting role, and certainly not the worst person in the world.

And yet there is this voice in our head that wants to convince us that we have only done bad things so far and now have to pay the consequences. In all the chaos of making or not making decisions, having self-doubts and immediately regretting them, sometimes all by ourselves or triggered by social constructs or the pressure of society or time moving too fast, 4 years, 1.460 days and 35.040 minutes can fly by and we don’t even realize how much is happening while we think everything has stayed the same. If we observe our own experiences, then we notice that every single moment has brought us a bit further and thus also a step further away from the person we used to be. Nevertheless, there is this uneasiness deep inside of us that makes us wonder if we don’t have enough time and if it is best to drop everything and start running immediately to try out every possible scenario that presents itself. Even if it makes us do things that we don’t want to do in our hearts.

So we start to rack our brains. Would we rather study psychology in order to have a high standing with our generation, although we could develop ourselves much better as a photographer? Or would it be much more fulfilling to write, but then the question would arise if we can be sure that a text is actually good or get it only told as an empty compliment? When are we ready to have children? Are we waking up one day and suddenly feel grown up and enough responsible to look and care for another human being? Is a partner with whom life feels free and carefree better than someone who challenges you and challenges you intellectually, but in the end is the one who understands you better? Are you lost because you suddenly feel the urge to cheat on someone just because you hope it will give you more clarity? Are you breaking up with someone just to find out if life is really better without them? Even if that relationship you just left behind turns out to be the most important one in retrospect? Because it made you feel more than just love and sexual desire. It made you joyful, soul-searching and happy, while making you feel melancholy, sad, confused and disappointed at the same time?

These are all the things that are not above living a simple life, laughing with someone, having trust in someone, and simply not being alone. Aren’t we all reaching mental maturity through the most painful and hardest occasions? Because in the end, life determines as if by itself what we are destined for and which path we have to take. Without us having even a rudimentary right of co-determination in who and what hurts us, it happens for a reason.

So you are always going to be the worst person in the world in your mind, but for someone else you might be the best. Yet we are all just human. It’s about moments when we think we’re invincible. It’s about moments when we bitterly regret it. It’s about seasons of life when we search. It’s about that feeling when we find our answers. Only to lose them. Again and again.