Hello,

I’m a 21 year old guy attending college in Europe having serious issue about being dissapointed and obsessing over my decision to study the degree i’m studying to the point i cannot enjoy life anymore. I understand that i’m just 21 year old and thus my decision may not be as decisive to my life, but it feels this way.

So to give some backround: Throughout school i had a vague inclination towards wanting to be a “scientist that cures diseases and finding new drugs etc”. I also had the “wish” for my job to be high-esteemed and to enable me to travel the world and embark on adventures without any additional economic concerns. I beleive this two factors acted like my “driving forces” through my teen life, making me vaugely considering Pharmacy ir Biology degrees for college.

In my country you get to choose a degree through something like a “National Exam” where the higher your marks the more “freedom” you have to choose your university and degree. When my time came i unexcpectedely managed to be able to choose almost any university and degree i wanted. Choosing “Medicine” started coming to my mind now, seeing that i had the chance of choosing it, even though it was something i never seriously considered before.

So my 18 year old self had to choose in one week what to study in college.

The idea of studying Medicine grew bigger and bigger, starting to consider embarking on a possibly exciting path that unraveled unexcpectedely in my life. At the same time though, the fear of being a doctor started to grow too. I started feeling that i couldn’t handle the burder of seeing dying patients and images of me being unhappy and incompetent were growing bigger and bigger too. Also the medical school i was able to go was in another city (Pharmacy and Biology schools were in my hometown), so the fear of moving out also terrified me.

After an extremly stressfull week osscilating between the excitement but also terror of exploring medical school, i decided last minute (literally) before the deadline to remove medical schools from my preferences list, meaning that i was going to study Biology that was my next choice.

The previously crippling fear about choosing medicine eroded but so did the excitement. A new feeling arised in an unforseen magnitude: dissapointment. The following weeks i became extremely dissapointed over not choosing medicine, i had lost any interest in exploring the world of “college” that i just had entered and Biology degree seemed more like lesser compromise.

This was the point that i felt like i became the side character of my own life, something that unfortunatelly stays with me to this day. I don’t have dreams about my future life anymore and i just feel a “worse” version of myself.

I should note that since then i’m also most of the time at a state of depersonalization/derealization. Also i still feel the need to figure out what degree should i study resulting in me searching the web countless hours for the “answer” even after years of the moment of the actuall choice.

Three years have passed since then but i still feel that i made the “wrong” choice. It feels like someone was calling me to embark on an adventure but i denied it. My life before felt like a movie, i was setting goals and i was trying to develop myself perosnally but unfortunatelly not anymore.

So what are your thoughts on overcoming big life regrets and how one can become again the “Protagonist” of his life if he feels the choice he made rendered him an “Extra”?

I understand i may be a little dramatic considering other issues that many people go through. Nevertheless I hope that if someone relates will also  be able to benefit from any advice given.

Thank you everyone for your time.

Hope you have a great day!

P.S: Sorry for my English and the long post.