I’m feeling so stuck right now, and I am afraid to voice this to anyone around me.

I was pre-dental all of my college career, and was dead set on becoming a dentist. I sent in my applications after all my hard work studying, shadowing, volunteering, and even being a club leader for dentistry. And despite all of that, I was not admitted. Many of the people I had tutored and even mentored got in, but I did not.

I thought I was OK with it. But 2 years later I feel like it has changed everything in my life. What I feel like I’ve learned is that I cannot succeed, even despite my best work. I ended up abandoning the dream of dentistry after I realized I was in it for the most despicable, wrong reasons: I wanted status and for people to admire me (because I was always the invisible person, a quiet soul lost in noise, the person that after 12 years at the same school nobody even knew my name), I wanted my parent’s approval (something I felt I could only gain through accomplishments), and I wanted money so that I could do the traveling I always dreamed to do but have still not been able to do. Not because I was passionate about it. It was OK, and it was something I felt alright doing, (I did enjoy the time I spent with my dentist) but I think overall my reasons above were driving me. And I think it is a good thing that I did not get into dental school based on these reasons (they’re quite ugly and that was very hard to type out) but I am now in a predicament.

I am stuck because I don’t know how to find my purpose. I am so terrified to take a step in any direction, so terrified that I will enter something for the wrong reasons again, that I don’t pursue anything at all. I feel like there is no hope for me.

I took a job to pay the bills, (which it barely did…) but there was no passion for it. And I feel like every day my time is dwindling down, and I feel like such a failure. I feel like I have no purpose. And more pathetically, I feel like I will never find one.

I talked for a counselor for a while, before my family moved and I had to quit my job to move. (I can no longer afford to speak with her). She said that it was necessary to first find myself, but I don’t even really know who that is anymore. And I never got the chance to speak to her more about it, because of the move and etc.

Any advice? 🙁