My Medium friends can read this story over there as well.
When I was a kid in the 90s, I didn’t know if I was talented. I just assumed I was.
Not because I was arrogant, but because nobody was there to constantly show me someone better.
There was no 12-year-old dude on YouTube shredding guitar solos in their bedroom. No 17-year-old millionaire on Instagram telling me I was wasting my life. No boys my age launching a fitness brands, writing books, selling digital products, or making thousands with Amazon affiliate links before they could legally drink wine.
There was just me. In my room. Doing things I liked. Believing I was pretty good at them.
I wasn’t. But that’s not the point.
The point is: That belief made me actually better.
Because when you think you might be good, you keep going. When you constantly see someone doing it better, you stop before you start.
The Death of “Good Enough”
Growing up offline meant your town was your world. In my case, it was my peninsula in the North Sea. An even smaller circle.
If you were the best guitar player in your school, you were “the guitar guy.” If you could write a decent poem, people said, “Wow, you’re talented.” If you skated, you’re the “skater dude”. If you played basketball, you’re the “baller”.
It was kind of cool that way.
Now?
A kid posts a painting on Instagram and within minutes the algorithm feeds them 700 artists from Paris, Tokyo, São Paulo, who are “proof” they’re just mediocre.
No inspiration. Annihilation of self-belief.
We like to pretend social media is motivational: Look what’s possible!
But most people don’t see possibility. They see evidence of why they shouldn’t even try.
Before the Internet, Trying Was Enough
When I picked up playing drums or learning to skate in my early teens, nobody told me there was a 8-year-old in Berlin doing it like a pro.
So I played Oasis and thought I sounded amazing. I didn’t. But again, that wasn’t the point. That feeling kept me practicing.
When I wrote something, I didn’t compare it to a Pulitzer-winning essay that the algorithm injected into my feed “for inspiration.” I just wrote. Maybe it was bad. But I finished. And finishing is where improvement lives.
Today, young creators quit before they reach that point.
They don’t get the luxury of naive confidence. They open TikTok, search “beginner guitar,” and instead of finding other beginners, they’re hit with virtuosos. The gap between where they are and where others are is so big, it feels pointless to start.
We used to be allowed to be mediocre in private. Now everything is public from day one.
Everyone Is (Apparently) Failing
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