I always get a gut-wrenching feeling when I realize I made a mistake.

And it doesn’t matter how big or small the mistake was, suddenly it’s all I can think about. It lives in the corner of my brain, taking up more space than it should and ruining any moment of silence I have for the next few days. At night it replays in my head until I eventually wake up with the same feeling of guilt in the pit of my stomach,

Why is that?

I honestly think it’s because making a mistake feels wrong. Not just in a “oh no!” type of way but more of a “how did I let this happen?” spiral. I have always gone out of my way to triple check every minor detail to avoid a mistake and it has always worked— so why should I stop?

Well I have very quickly come to learn in my 20’s that making mistakes isn’t as avoidable as I thought. Whether it’s double booking hangouts, missing appointments, not understanding how credit cards work, or forgetting to do something, every choice I made felt like a risk for another mistake. At first it felt like an overwhelming nightmare. No matter how much I doubled, tripled, or quadrupled checked everything I did, I was still messing up.

However, what I also learned was that the gut-wrenching feeling that once followed me started to fade away and (not-so-surprisingly) mistakes weren’t so daunting. It was just something that happened and it was fine. In fact, I started to get comfortable with the idea of making a mistake— but is that a good or bad thing?

Honestly, I’m not really sure.

So, here’s the dilemma. Is trying to avoid mistakes by any means possible worth the extra effort or is it time that I start getting comfortable with making them for the better?

On one hand, using all my energy to prevent mistakes not only stops me from pursuing new things but also sets an expectation that in doing so I will never make a mistake (which is incredibly unrealistic). On the other hand, if I get used to the idea of making mistakes then I won’t feel like something is stopping me from trying new things. Rather than fearing something will go wrong, I would just risk it and see what happens. The catch? I might get too comfortable with making them that eventually it will be all I do.

Which is better? Honestly I don’t know.

What I do know is that as a chronic perfectionist who struggles to be okay with just the idea of making a mistake but can’t seem to stop making them despite all odds, it’s time to stop focusing on what I did wrong and focus on what could happen if I just took a risk by doing something new. Because despite what could go wrong, there is (almost) always a bright side to every mistake.

It is so rare that I remember one of my dreams.

Most times I wake up with a faint memory of what I dreamed about. Bits and pieces would flash through my head and then poof, it was gone. Yet, this dream I remember vividly and it isn’t going away.

I am driving on this road but there are no signs or landmarks that I recognize. There are cars around me but I can’t see who’s driving them, they are just shadows. The road seems like it has no end and I can’t make out anything at the end of the road because all I can see are the cars in front of me.

Then, I have the sudden urge to brake. All I could think about was stopping the car as fast as possible and to get off the road. So, I slam my foot on the brake as hard as I can— but it doesn’t work.

Despite how hard I press my foot on the brake or move the wheel to enter the emergency lane, nothing happens. Literally nothing happens. The car doesn’t move any faster or slower, the car doesn’t begin to swerve or go out of control, and nobody around me seems to be noticing my panic.

And somehow I can suddenly see myself panicking, like an out of body experience. And all I can think is, why am I panicking? I know that there is no reason for me to break but there is this sinking feeling that I need to stop my car immediately. After a while, I just wake up but that feeling of having to stop still lingers.

So of course, the first thing I do is google my dream.

After falling down a rabbit hole, it seems that my subconscious is trying to tell me that I am feeling like I am losing control or things are moving too fast. Which explains why I have such a strong need to stop my car.

But what about everything else?

Why don’t I recognize anything around me? Why doesn’t the steering wheel work? Who are the shadows in the cars around me? Many of my questions were left unanswered despite all I did to try to find answers. I couldn’t help but to keep thinking about the dream and try to make sense of it in any way I can. So here’s my theory.

I think I’m driving on an unrecognizable and unidentifiable road because I literally do not know where I am going. I wrote an article about how my future feels like a blur because I am unsure where I will end up post-graduation, and I think this dream is my subconscious telling me that despite how excited I am to start a new part of my life, I am still anxious about what will happen. It would also explain why my steering wheel isn’t working. Despite how nervous I am about what will happen there is nowhere else to go but forward. I can’t stop and I can’t change lanes because that’s not the path I chose (or maybe it just isn’t meant for me).

Which brings me to the shadows. In the dream, I was focused on all the cars around me and the more I think about the shadows, the more I think that they are supposed to be people I have met. Something else I mentioned in my previous article is that it feels like I’m in a race I didn’t sign up for, so it would make sense that the shadows driving the cars around me (that seem unfazed by anything around them) would be them. Memories of people I once knew.

I have had a few dreams that I can faintly remember, but most times (if not all the time) I don’t remember them as vividly as I remember this one. I do think that our dreams are a way that our subconscious try’s to tell us things that we are not ready to face. In a way, it helps us through them. So, we shouldn’t ignore them when they are screaming at us that something is wrong.

I’ve reached the inevitable stage that almost every 20-something year old and soon to be graduate seems to always end up in— the stage of wondering “what will I do post-graduation?”

But it doesn’t stop there. It’s just the first of the many questions that needs to be answered like What will I do for work? Do I go back to school? Where will I live? What will happen if I can’t find anything? What will happen when a large part of my life ends?

Bottom line, what does my future hold for me?

When the uncertainty of it all gets too much, I think of how great it would be if I could shake a magic eight ball and get the answers to my questions. To know what will happen and if everything will work out. A simple “it is certain” or “yes, definitely” feels like it would stop all my thoughts from spiraling.

In theory, it sounds great. The problem? I’d know what could happen (stay with me here).

It would feel like my path is set in stone and despite the comfort it might offer me for a while, I think there are so many possibilities of what I could do that knowing what my future will be sounds more frightening than not knowing. I mean, a large reason I decided to study English is because of the possible doors (or even windows) that can open for me.

So, here’s the dilemma. I can either fall into the spiral of questions driven by anxiety of what my future holds for me as motivation to secure a single path so my future is no longer a fog. Or, I can take the time to enjoy the excitement of a new beginning and explore what I could be but risk falling behind on major milestones.

Either choice feels like the wrong one. I can’t help but think about the fact that I am only in my 20’s and I am just beginning to learn who I am and what I hope to do. There are so many things I want to be because my interests seem to be scattered everywhere. Writing, art, and literature have surrounded me for years and pursuing a career that combines all three feels almost impossible. But then I think, well I am in my 20’s and I need to decide already. It feels like there is no more time left to think. I need to decide now or I risk falling behind the race I didn’t sign up for.

So, why not a third option.

Maybe there is a balance. Where I can choose a single path and it doesn’t have to be the end of everything else. That the answer to what my future holds would not be so limiting to what I could do. I think about all the people who started something new in their life way past their 20’s because why not? Why can’t we start a new chapter of our life despite our age.

Despite how hard we might try, the blurriness of the future never really goes away. The unknown of what we could be or end up is anxiously-exciting and though it feels like a nightmare at the moment as a near graduating 20-something year old, maybe it isn’t so bad. It is just taking a risk and see where it goes.

Ever had an idea that you thought was so original and unique that no one else but you could have possibly thought about it, just to be disappointed that someone else indeed thought of it already? If the answer is yes, you’re not alone. In fact, there seems to be enough of us that we could start a club.

A fear that seems to come every time I hit a writer’s block is that I won’t be able to have an original thought. If everything I write feels like a regurgitated version of what I have read, why should I write about it? It feels like I’m jumping on someone else’s thought train and going along for the ride.

Then there is the imposter syndrome that follows. If I can’t have an original thought, how could I call myself a writer? Writers must come up with at least one original thought in their lifetime, at least that’s all I can think about when I read a new book or research article or even stumble upon a short story. The same question haunts me, how did they think of this?

So, if everything has been thought of, can there be an original thought anymore?

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos; the material must, in the first place, be afforded: it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself” - Mary Shelley in Frankenstein

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley is the best example of what I consider to be one of the most original thoughts possible. Everyone and everything has a role in the story. Nature is symbolic. The characters represent emotions, thoughts, and ideas. There is ambition, longing, ethical questions, social isolation, and warnings of the danger of knowledge. Reading the novel does not remind me of anything I have read before, and that is what I fear I won’t be able to achieve.

Yet, Mary Shelley herself has said that creativity does not come from nowhere.

A vital part of what makes Shelley’s novel so original is the fact that a lot of what she writes is based on her experience, people from her life, and even her dreams. She added herself to the novel and maybe that is the secret to writing an original thought— ourselves.

Despite how hard it might feel, I don’t think there should be so much pressure in coming up with that one amazing, unthinkable thought all the time. There is comfort in knowing that others have felt what we have experienced and the only way to create that comfort is to write by including ourselves into our work.

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When I was little, I wrote letters to myself to open on my birthday. Each letter reminded me of a version of myself that I seemed to have forgotten as the years passed. The letters held a dream that tied to something I once loved to do and every birthday I am reminded that I no longer did those things.

I told myself that I stopped doing these things because I just didn’t have the time. There was always school, then homework and eventually work. There wasn’t enough time in the day to do anything else (at least that is what it felt like). Eventually, I just began to think that I “grew” out of it and that’s why I no longer enjoyed doing these things.

Until I started to do them again.

”Sometimes saving ourselves start with a seemingly simple act” — Meagan Church in The Mad Wife

In one letter, I wrote of how much I had hoped that older me still wrote. That I still filled pages with my words. That I somehow managed to write a book. It was disappointing to realize that I did not write with the same love she once did. I only wrote papers that would quickly be forgotten once the class had ended. Writing was no longer something I loved, just something I had to do.

Eventually, I wanted to write again. I wanted to fall back in love with writing. I wanted to write without the limitations I had gotten used to having. And in the few weeks I have written here, it feels like I have slowly fallen back in love with writing in the way I used to.

And the more I thought about it the more I realized that I used the same excuse to stop doing other things that I once loved to do. Reading, crafting, drawing— anything that little me had once filled her time with. I realized that I never really stopped loving to do these things, I just stopped doing them.

I also realized that my love for these things had changed.

I was always the kid with her nose in a book. I was the one who wanted to stop at a book store or stay at the library a bit longer to finish a book I had started. I loved reading and though at some point I did not read as much, the love still lingered (I am convinced that love is what quietly pushed me to study English). And as I fall back in love with reading, I know that the love is different. As a child I read books that were full of adventure and the impossible, now I read to learn. To learn what happened and what could happen. To learn what others have felt or experienced. To learn just because I loved to learn while reading.

Falling back in love with the things we once enjoyed doing does not need to replicate the love we had at first. It means learning to love those things once again through the person you have become. So, when I open the next letter I can only hope that I will be reminded of another thing I once loved to do, so I can fall back in love with it.

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Failing has always felt forbidden. No one wants to fail. No one likes the feeling that comes with failing. No one seeks our failure. No one wants to be labeled a failure. As a writer, failing has always felt like the end. What if no one likes what I wrote? What if there is no one to witness what I have written? What if it is simply not good? I wanted to stay in what I knew I was good in, but now I think not failing is what is holding me back.

“To fail willingly in writing is to be empowered by the possibilities that emerge. It is to trust oneself and one’s ideas, a quality too rare in the age of hyper-achievement, in which the only progress that counts is progress that moves up” — Allison D. Carr in “Failure is Not an Option”

I was assigned Carr chapter titled “Failure is Not an Option” in a writing studies course and it changed how I saw the idea of failing. Going in, I thought it was going to be another piece that talked about why failing didn’t exist. That all writing is successful in its own unique way. This was not one of those pieces.

Carr acknowledges that failure is real. That due to all the negative stigma and associations connected to failing, we all try to avoid it at all cost. I mean of course, who would want to fail when it feels terrible to do so? But if we do not risk failure (or even fail here and there), how do we know if we are truly challenging ourselves?

So here’s the dilemma, should we stay comfortable in what we know we do well or should we take the risk of failure in order to grow? On one hand, comfort can feel safe. If we continue to do what we know we do well, then what is the harm? We can feel content in knowing that we are doing something and we are doing it good enough. On the other hand, is good enough actually good enough long term?

“Failure should be welcomed, if not actively sought out, signaling as it does both the presence of creative, risky thinking and an opportunity to explore a new direction” — Allison D. Carr in “Failure is Not an Option”

Starting Substack took me months to do. I would write down name ideas for what I would call my Substack and post ideas in my notes app. I would think about the freedom it would give me as a writer. I thought about how this could be the beginning of something I have been dreaming about.

But then the fear would strike like lightning, and just like lightning I never knew when and where it would be coming from. In a flash my dream would become a nightmare.

Instead of thinking of what I could do, I suddenly could only focus on what I couldn’t. I didn’t know how to use Substack and I didn’t know how it would work out for me. I didn’t know how to write with freedom. I have grown comfortable in having others tell me what to write and how to write it that I forgot how to simply write. So, I kept putting it off.

What I was really doing was avoiding taking the risk of failing. A risk I needed to take to grow as a writer.

Failing is not the end if we stop saying that it is. Every story I hear of someone who has succeeded in what they love has always come across a moment where they needed to take a leap and risk failure. I have also heard stories of people who have failed and still prospered afterwards. Taking that risk could be exactly what we need to find out what we’re truly meant to do. So by not failing, we could be holding ourselves back from what we could be.

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To be alone is simply physical isolation. I find that being comfortable with my own company is detrimental to enjoying the things I like to do. It allows me to do the things I want, like going to cafe’s or bookstores, without feeling I need others around me to feel that enjoyment. But there is always a question that seems to come up every now and then, “don’t you get lonely?”

It is easy for the line between alone and lonely to blur but I think they tend to be paired together more often than they should be.

“Of course, sometimes we forget that dreams and nightmares are two sides of the same coin” — Meagan Church, The Mad Wife

I started reading The Mad Wife by Meagan Church and I find this quote to be fitting here. The protagonist, Lulu, is a suburban housewife who is desperately longing for someone to have a real connection with. Someone who will understand her when she says that she is unhappy living the suburban housewife life that others dream about without feeling shame is uttering the words out loud. She is simply looking for someone to have a real conversation with where her true emotions do not need to be sugar coated for the fear of judgement.

Even though Lulu is the epitome of loneliness, she is never truly alone. She has a husband, children, neighbors, friends, and even a stray cat that she finds comfort in at night. She is surrounded by people (and a cat) at all times but that seems to be her biggest problem. Despite how lonely she is, she craves to be alone.

But how can one be lonely yet have a desire to be alone?

I would describe loneliness in two ways. The first would be that feeling lonely is rooted in the feeling of longing. Though it could be the longing of being heard, seen, or a connection, it is something that sometimes feels as though we can only receive from someone else. The second would be that loneliness is the feeling of being misunderstood. That feeling where it seems like no one understands you in more ways than one despite doing everything you can to make them understand.

Loneliness comes in many forms, but it is an emotional (not a physical) state.

I think that this distinction is really important to understand. I would confuse the two more times than I can remember which would stop me from enjoying my own company. But the only way I was able to make being alone feel less threatening was to stop connecting alone with the feeling of being empty or feel as if something was missing. I had to separate what being alone meant and what feeling lonely was and in doing so, my desire to be alone grew.

Feeling lonely is something anyone would understandably want to avoid, but being alone shouldn’t be. Being alone is something that can reveal our inner thoughts and desires that we didn’t know about ourselves before and help us grow into someone that isn’t afraid to enjoy their own company. So, to answer the question “don’t you get lonely?” my answer is “no, I don’t.”

Writing shouldn’t be as intimidating as it feels. I remember as a kid that writing was just putting pen to paper. In fact, great writing was just grammatically correct sentences written well enough that it was legible— that was it. The older I got the more complex writing became. The words needed to do something to the readers, their existence was no longer enough. As my fingertips hover over the keyboard the same thought passes my mind, “will this be good enough?”

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If you have ever read a novel, poem, short story, or even a substack article that seemed to have been written for you and came at the best time possible. you’ll know how I feel when I say that my first book of 2026 seemed to have taken a sneak peek into my diary of fears as a writer. Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang was not just a novel that followed two women from different sides of the corrupted publishing industry, it followed a writer who wanted to make a name for herself more than anything. Yet in doing so, it cost her everything she had.

“I want to move people’s hearts. I want my books in stores all over the world…I want the world to wait with bated breath for what I will say next. I want my words to last forever. I want to be eternal, permanent; when I’m gone, I want to leave behind a mountain of pages that scream Juniper Song was here, and she told us what was on her mind.” — Yellow Face by R.F. Kuang

Juniper didn’t just sacrifice her sanity or reputation, she abandoned her writing to become good enough in her own twisted way. The novel that failed to make it big in the publishing world. The novel that couldn’t get her the fame and validation she desperately craved. The novel that she once refused to give up on. The novel that she tossed away the second she knew that if she did, she would become the next big author.

Even so, Juniper Hayward was a writer who just wanted to be good enough.

So here’s the dilemma, should all writers seek to be one of the greats or will our words simply existing in the void be enough? On one hand, the thought of becoming one of the greats can feel validating but it always seems to come at a cost one way or another ( I mean look at how far Juniper Hayward was willing to go). On the other hand, the relief of writing without the haunting feeling of constantly being perceived can quickly disappear when there is no one to recognize it. It puts most writers in an either or situation.

Full transparency, I’m still not sure which of the two will be the path for me. If you’ve read my first post of the dilemma you’ll know that writing on here is just a space to do just that— write. Nevertheless, I have read the articles on the ways thousands of writers have monetized their writing on here and it is a not-so-secret dream that one day I could make a living from writing.

But the act of writing alone is terrifying in itself, why should we be limited by our own harsh judgement (or worse the judgement of others) if it is good enough before it could be shared?

It can be hard to call oneself a writer when we are unsure if our writing will get the response we are looking for. But no matter the path a writer takes, it should be thrilling to know that our words exist somewhere out in the void.

How it began

Have you ever found yourself deciding between two options that are just as bad as the other? Congrats, you know what it’s like to be in a dilemma.

As a girl in her 20’s about to walk the stage to finally enter the “real world” with nothing but an English degree and her iPad, the pressure of deciding what I will do post-graduation seems to be all I can think about for months. It seems like I am finally met with the dreadful situation where I need to decide what I will do now or never because time is running out (at least that’s what everyone seems to be saying). Do I pursue grad school? Where will I work? What will I do? When does the socially acceptable grace period of job searching end? Do I pursue my passion or do I take something safe and secure? You know, the basic “omg I’m about to graduate and I have no idea what I’m going to do” freak out.

What I did know for certain was that all I’ve ever wanted to do was write.

I think stumbling upon substack was a sign. It’s surprising to think of how hidden Substack was in my bubble before I saw a video yet it seemed to have come at the best time possible. I was desperately looking for a place to write without all the restrictions that come with writing for school. As I jumped between personal essays, poems, newsletters, and blog posts over the span of a few weeks I thought, “maybe I could do this.”

So, the dilemma was created.

What to expect

Every Sunday (I’m being optimistic of course) you’ll find a little something written by me in your inbox. The dilemma is not just a space to air out my issues (though it can be therapeutic to do so), but a space to discuss girlhood, books, academic chaos, and a bit of a quarter life crisis. All the things that seem to sum up how my last semester will be going.

More importantly, this is a space for those who are going through things they aren’t ready to say out loud. For those who are stuck in their heads about what could happen which stops them from doing. Because there is so much comfort in knowing that someone else has experienced, thought, or felt whatever we’re going through now and that is what I am hoping the dilemma would do.

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Who am I

The girl who’s hoping to find her way on your feed as you scroll is me— Heidi!

If you’ve made it this far you have gathered that I’m a 20-something English student who’s about to graduate and is incredibly nervous about what she’ll do post-graduation. You should also know that I am (and have been) a book worm for as long as I can remember. The Dork the Diaries series is where I’d like to think it all began and it kind of explains why my writing endeavors have unsurprisingly led me here. I am also someone who is chronically on Pinterest, takes photos of almost everything, a procrastinator in denial, fills her notes app with every idea that pops in her head, a flea market enthusiast, rambler and advocate of women rights, strong believer in “I can totally make that”, and a writer (but I tend to struggle with that title).

To say I am excited to start the dilemma is an understatement. I’ve been talking about this potential Substack to any one who would listen and I’ve finally decided to take the plunge. I look forward to sharing bits and pieces of myself to anyone willing to read.

Support in any shape or form would be beyond appreciated by me! (Note: You can also find me on Instagram @the.diilemma !)

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