I Thought My Life Was Useless
I thought failure was showing me who I was. I was just reading my story too early.
The only time I ever wanted to end my life was when I thought things would never work out and could never get better.
My mother leaves the house yet again at 04:30 am. I’m of course asleep but it’s pitch black outside…
I go to school with my father and sister, so I live most of my days without my mother…
But then as it’s dark again, I hear the opening of the door.
Somehow, through my headphones…
even while I’m playing games. I shove my headphones and run downstairs…
She greets me and I take off her jacket
Mom, when I’m 18 you will never have to work again!
I’m only 12 but I know I can do it!
…
I’m about to end primary school and I wonder what I’m going to do with my life…
Maybe I’ll become a computer engineer, maybe a doctor…
But then I remember,
My mother is struggling so much, and going through school would take too long to retire her.
How can I make a lot of money while doing something I enjoy?
Okay, I love watching PewDiePie. He’s a millionaire playing games. And I love games.
Instead of looking for a job, maybe I should solve the biggest problem in my life…
With a job that I would really enjoy…
…
I’m taking one year off before high school to seriously start YouTube…
I just published my first video on my new gaming channel…
Starts to grow slowly.
Okay, let me learn everything I can about YouTube.
I will spend 8-14 hour days just working…
Months have gone by, still only 277 subscribers…
…
I’ve been doing this for a few months now, and I’ve still barely gotten any growth…
Growth is actually declining…
Why isn’t this working!
I’ve been working so hard…
am I just wasting one year off my life…
…
My mother comes home from her job,
Her knees are swollen…
and she needs a foot bath because they’re too swollen…
And her back hurts so she comes home to sleep…
Welcome home mother…
But I can barely look her in her eyes…
her son, who took one year off school, is not going anywhere.
Why would she respect me?
Alexander! Hope you’re doing so well!
My mother is always so positive, how does she do it…
Oh my god!
My channel is exploding!
A video is going viral and everything is working out…
I even got monetized!
This is it…
All the hard work after months finally paid off…
Now I can start earning money and finally start to help my mother.
I tell her the news, she’s so happy for me!
I still have months until school begins. At this rate I won’t have to go to school!
…
It’s January 2022, It’s been 6 months since taking the gap year and the channel…
Is doing worse than ever…
Or it’s not actually doing so bad but I’m trying everything.
But it barely earns over 200-300 dollars a month.
I have over 1000 subscribers…
Yet it feels like none of them came back to watch most of my videos now.
…
Why did I even get excited…
Even when I make it, everything just fails again…
I never should’ve started this YouTube channel.
At least I would have been 6 months into my high school.
And now 6 months behind, well actually 12 because I’m wasting the next 6 months now.
My father tells me to help him with something…
Yes father!
As I’m doing my thing though. I’m too much in my thoughts, just thinking about if things don’t work out…
I end up messing up the tasking and forgetting things.
Alex, you forgot this thing. Pay more attention!
Usually, I let this go. I don’t even take it personally…
But I listen to him. And close off…
I hide my face and I’m trying my best not to break down in silence…
As I’m doing the work…
I’m wondering…
Why do I always fail…
why does everything I do just never work out…
and even when it does, god crushes my hope…
why do I even live, if I also can’t keep my promise to my mother.
…
I finish helping him and go back to my room.
I scream into my pillow…
I cry…
And for the first time in my life, I genuinely think about ending it.
I don’t actually want to die.
I just don’t want to keep feeling like a failure.
Because somehow…
I keep failing…
had become
I am a failure.
I’m in high school, the channel is actually doing pretty well for once…
I’m making $1000 a month. But now is time to actually focus on school. And not waste any more time. At least this path will be safe and secure…
as long as I get good grades…
do my homework…
and listen to the teachers…
…
I’m taking this test, and as I get the paper I look down…
Oh my god…
I don’t know anything about this…
Wait, didn’t I study for this?…
no, I was trying to grow my YouTube channel.
…
The test is halfway done and I almost start to break down…
Why am I such a failure?
I won’t even be able to pass high school at this rate…
I used to get such good grades in primary school.
Now school is failing, and my YouTube channel will fail too.
My mother cannot be saved…
…
I pick up the paper, try not to break down as I hand the teacher my test.
And I leave.
I used to walk up early with confidence in primary school because I knew I basically aced the test.
Now I’m walking out because I’ve become so much worse then I used to be…
…
I’m taking the train home, and I sit by the window seat…
I cry my heart out, but in a way where the sobbing is really quiet.
What do I do?
How can I ever achieve anything?
And now my mother is picking me up, oh great. Fucking great…
Now she will know how much I failed this test too…
And I know she will smile and tell me I’m so smart and everything, I know she means it.
But I just can’t do anything…
Because, I will watch her go to work tomorrow.
…
I enter the car and immediately start to cry more than I ever have in my life…
Alexander! What’s wrong. Did someone hurt you?!
Are you being bullied?!
I say to her…
I can’t do this mom… I can’t do it anymore…
I was also so stressed by school and by YouTube.
I’m working at school, and then spending 8-14 hour days during the weekends and breaks to work on YouTube.
I tell her I need to drop one of the businesses…
…
I’m at home and I feel good somehow, my mother understood…
she talked to my father and tells him she’s never seen me this upset ever.
At least now, I feel heard. And that I can decide what to do next.
…
I’m sick for a few weeks, turns out I had COVID.
I had taken one terrible test and used it as proof that I had become stupid.
I didn’t even know I had COVID.
A big update for my game comes, but I’m sick.
Doesn’t matter. I’m going make all the videos that I can about it. I have a lot of time now from school because I took a little break.
I’m streaming, and my viewers ask me if I’m okay…
I’m coughing and laughing as my viewers are worried.
But after a few days, something extraordinary happens…
I get more views than I ever had before.
…
$500 dollars in a single day!
I don’t care if I’m sick, I’m going to pump out videos!
I’m going to film all day, then spend the night editing the videos.
Then I earn $600 dollars with the next video.
And then, all of the sudden when November 2022 ends…
I had made $6000 dollars.
In a month.
…
I tell my mother the news, and for the first time…
Alex, you’re so smart and successful!
I actually believe her…
Maybe all those failures hadn’t been telling me who I was.
Maybe I needed to live long enough for new evidence to appear…
I’m so happy I’m alive.
I drop out of high school after a few months of doing it.
And I focus all in on YouTube…
I can go back to high school before I’m 20. So now that I’m 17, I have all the time to earn money and help my mother.
Then, a few months after dropping out.
$10,000…
$20,000…
It doesn’t feel like reality…
I was playing silly games for a living, and I could make so much money off it.
…
Yes, Alex he’s so successful! He’s playing games and makes more than doctors!
My mother when she talks about me…
But she always said that, she always said positive things about me.
Yet this time, I can smile and agree…
…
When I went to a tax consultant, he looks at me and my father and asks for my income…
Yes, he made $20,000 last month…
He looks absolutely shocked…
Even though I agree, I don’t think about the money at that point…
Because when I came home one day, I would buy the only thing that I needed money for…
My mother comes home one day from work and me and my father decide…
That she doesn’t have to work…
…
We tell her the news and she immediately jumps for joy….
Thank you, Alex! I’m so proud of you.
I’ve never seen her more happier in my life.
And I even though I have a faint smile because I act nonchalant…
I really never felt more fulfilled.
And I finally thought, that for once.
I could reach a goal.
…
Looking back, I thought all those failures were showing me who I was.
They weren’t.
They were showing me what I still didn’t know how to do.
I wasn’t useless.
I was inexperienced.
I was scared.
I was trying things I didn’t know how to do yet.
But because I couldn’t see the person I might become…
I treated the evidence I had that day like it was all the evidence I would ever have.
Maybe the most dangerous thing about failure isn’t failing.
It’s deciding too early what the failure means about you.
Because sometimes the evidence that changes your mind…
hasn’t happened yet.
I thought I knew how my story ended.
I was just reading it too early.