The pressure to be as good
From when I was a little girl to me as a sixteen-year-old today - I have always lived in the shadow of my overachieving sister. All my life, I have only been referred to as her little sister. Her performance in every field is phenomenal. She got through all colleges she applied to, aced her grade 12 and was an outstanding Indian classical dancer - she really was the complete package. And don’t get me wrong – I’ve always been extremely proud of all she has achieved, but sometimes in the back of my head I just wish I could beat her.
I love my sister and my relationship with her is beyond perfect but sometimes it can be tough figuring out how you’re ever going to live up to the standard set by them. One of the worst things is that people have all these assumptions about who you are and what you do based on what your sibling did. Sometimes you just wish they didn’t put 2 and 2 together and looked at each of you as separate individuals and not just as siblings.
As they say - pressure can burst a pipe or make a diamond – and I constantly feel like I’m going to burst. I feel this constant pressure of having to prove myself to everyone. Yes, my sister’s achievements have pushed me to do better in many ways and taught me to give my 100% in everything – but sometimes you just want to take a step back and relax. Sometimes you want to stop being compared and start being noticed for who you are and what you’ve done. You just wanted to be given some credit of your own once in a while.
But I can’t complain too much, because at the end of the day she is my role model, and she is what I one day aspire to be. We are each our own person with a lifetime of experiences ahead of us. It might feel like you’re letting people down or disappointing people who expected so much more from you., but how you decide to live does not have to rely on how your sibling lived theirs or how people expected to live. It’s our life and we have to live it as ours.