Why can someone occupy so much of my mind without occupying much of my day?

Lately, I realized that I think more often about the people around me.

Which is kind of a problem for me.

Not completely... I don’t know. I just don’t want to think about them all the time.

I wanted some quiet time for myself.

Of course, I eat, do skincare, do chores, and do all sorts of work that I have to do in my daily life. But somehow, they still occupy my mind.

I can be doing something completely ordinary, and suddenly my mind goes somewhere else.

To something they said.

Something they didn’t say.

Something they did.

Something they didn’t do.

And sometimes I don’t even know why I’m thinking about it anymore.

I admire it when people say,

“I went completely into my work. I didn’t feel even a little bit of my concentration reduced while doing it.”

I want to be able to do my work with that kind of confidence.

I want to be there fully.

How could they do it?

How could they move on so easily while I was sinking myself somewhere just by thinking about them?

I have questioned myself about this for many years.

And then I came to realize something.

I am much more comfortable with myself than with others.

If I make a mistake, I forgive myself, console myself, motivate myself, and move on to the next mistake.

Ha ha ha!

Maybe that’s why my own mistakes don’t stay with me for very long.

But when someone else makes a silly mistake—something that could easily be ignored—I take it into my mind.

And then I start thinking:

Look at me, trying to create a flawless person.

So selfish.

You can think I’m cruel.

“Oh, she’s not even the forgiving type.”

Ahh, no.

I forgive immediately.

But forgetting takes longer.

No, not just longer.

Sometimes, much longer.

And perhaps that’s what bothers me most.

Not even the mistake itself.

It’s the fact that it continues to occupy space in my head.

And even if I eventually forget it, what if they repeat it again?

Then I remember.

Again.

I’m sorry for saying “mistake” again and again.

I don’t want to be harsh either.

They are simply human.

Humans make mistakes.

I know that.

I just don’t seem to know how to stop carrying those mistakes around with me.

Maybe that’s the real problem.

Not that I care about people.

Not even that I get disappointed.

But that sometimes I give their actions far more space inside my mind than they deserve.

They might have moved on with their day.

Meanwhile, I’m still here, replaying something that happened hours—or sometimes days—ago.

And that’s the part I don’t want anymore.

I don’t want my work to become a background activity while someone else occupies the foreground of my mind.

I don’t want my quiet moments to automatically become moments of thinking about someone else.

I don’t want my life to quietly become organized around other people’s actions.

I want to be able to care about people and still have a part of my mind that belongs only to me.

Maybe that’s what I mean when I say I want some time for myself.

Not just time away from people.

Space away from them inside my own head.

And I don’t know yet how to create that space.

I’m still figuring it out.

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Maybe I wasn't looking for less intelligence. Maybe I was looking for less pressure.

I've never been the smartest person in the room. But I’ve never been the dumbest either.

I’ve spent most of my academic life somewhere in between—good enough to do reasonably well, but never exceptional enough for people to associate me with ranks and academic brilliance.

For a long time, I didn’t think much about it.

Recently, though, I’ve started wondering whether being somewhere in the middle gives you a strange perspective.

I recently attended a guest lecture by a government officer. During the lecture, he casually mentioned that he had been a below-average student.

That stayed with me.

Not because I was shocked that someone who struggled academically could have a good career.

But because it challenged something I had apparently believed without ever consciously examining it.

Somewhere in my head, there had always been an equation:

Academic excellence → good opportunities → successful career → successful life.

It sounds logical.

Until you start meeting people whose lives don’t follow it.

I’ve seen people who weren’t academic stars enter impressive institutions and find good opportunities.

I’ve also seen academically brilliant people encounter setbacks when they moved into a different kind of competition.

And somewhere between observing all of this, I had a rather ridiculous thought:

Maybe I should have been a dumb student.

But before I let that thought become a conclusion, I had to stop myself.

Because there is something important that shouldn’t be lost in all of this.

Academic excellence is real.

When someone consistently scores exceptionally well in examinations or cracks a highly competitive entrance examination, that tells us something.

They have demonstrated academic ability.

They have understood the material, prepared for it, and managed to perform when the examination demanded it.

And in a country where entrance examinations can determine access to highly sought-after colleges and career paths, that achievement matters enormously.

So I don’t want to make the opposite mistake and say, “See? Marks don’t matter.”

They do.

A person who performs exceptionally in academics is exceptional academically.

That’s worth acknowledging.

The problem begins when we quietly stretch that statement into something much larger:

“They are academically exceptional, therefore they will necessarily be exceptional at life.”

That’s where the logic becomes shaky.

Competitive examinations measure a particular combination of knowledge, preparation, speed, strategy and the ability to perform under pressure.

Those are valuable abilities.

But they aren’t the only abilities life rewards.

And they certainly aren’t a complete description of a person.

That distinction became particularly important to me because I’m not a rank holder.

I’m not an academic failure either.

I’m simply somewhere in the middle.

And being in the middle can sometimes feel strangely uncomfortable.

You’re good enough to know you have potential, but not exceptional enough to stop questioning it.

There is always someone ahead.

Someone with better marks.

Someone who got into a better institution.

Someone who cleared an exam you couldn’t.

And because you’re neither at the very top nor the very bottom, you can spend an absurd amount of time measuring yourself against everyone around you.

Then I realised something.

I didn’t suddenly become wiser because I met successful people. I became uncomfortable because their success contradicted a story I had been telling myself.

The story was that academic performance would eventually sort people into their places.

The exceptional students would rise.

The average students would remain somewhere in the middle.

And the students who struggled academically would have fewer opportunities.

But real life seems much less organised.

The hierarchy of a classroom doesn’t necessarily become the hierarchy of adulthood.

Someone who struggled academically can develop extraordinary practical ability.

Someone who was brilliant academically can struggle when circumstances change.

Someone in the middle can find a path that nobody saw coming.

None of these things make academic ability meaningless.

They simply put it in its proper place.

Academic intelligence is one form of ability.

There is also practical intelligence.

Creativity.

Communication.

Adaptability.

Persistence.

Judgment.

The ability to recognise an opportunity.

The ability to recover when something doesn’t work.

The ability to keep going when there is no syllabus telling you what chapter comes next.

None of these fit neatly into a mark sheet.

So maybe the freedom isn’t in becoming the smartest person in the room.

Maybe it’s in becoming comfortable with the fact that I don’t have to be.

Someone will always know more than me.

Someone will always perform better than me.

Someone who struggled academically may eventually achieve something I never imagined.

Someone who was brilliant may have a completely different journey.

And none of that determines mine.

I still want to study well.

I still want to become competent.

I still want to build a life I’m proud of.

But I don’t want my academic performance to become a prediction I have to spend my entire life fulfilling.

Maybe being somewhere in the middle isn’t mediocrity.

Maybe it’s simply a place where there is still plenty of room to grow.

And perhaps there is a strange freedom in that.

I don’t have to be the smartest person in the room.

I just have to be willing to keep learning while I’m in it.