Reflections on Still Feeling Average and Not "Enough" in My Mid-Late 30s

Five years after publishing "Average is the New Awesome," this is what I still need to remind myself.

Jan 07, 2025

Happy 5th book birthday, Average is the New Awesome! Five years later, I’m still needing my own advice. Here are my reflections on the book’s message after ~half a decade.~

Everyone feels like they’re not enough at times.

I felt it after graduating college. I felt it as I floated through my 20s. I felt it after I published my first book five years ago today (a book that is literally about this feeling). I felt it when I first became a mom. And I feel it now, probably more than ever before, in my mid-late 30s.

Even celebrities—the most accomplished ones, the ones you view as way above average—have felt this way.

If you haven’t seen Demi Moore’s acceptance speech from Sunday’s Golden Globes, it’s the perfect example of this. She said:

“In those moments when we don’t think we’re smart enough or pretty enough or skinny enough or successful enough or basically just not enough—I had a woman say to me, just know, you will never be enough, but you can know the value of your worth if you just put down the measuring stick.”

It’s clear we all have our own ideas of what “enough” means. One may think, how could an actress like Demi Moore think she’s not enough? It’s simple. Her measuring stick only measured the distance between her and those that she perceived as doing better than her. Not the distance between her and the rest of the world. And certainly not the distance between her then and her now.

You Really Are Enough!

I learned the feeling of enough was a concept after I started writing about my own struggles of self-acceptance on my blog in my 20s. I constantly wrote about not feeling smart enough, skinny enough, and successful enough, just like Demi fucking Moore apparently, who is all of those things and MORE (no pun intended, really).

Whether I wrote about my struggles with weight, my worries of being behind all of my peers financially, my fear of being disliked by everyone, and my constant panic about not being far enough along in my career, people always related.

It was as if everyone, myself included (and also Demi Moore lol), needed to be attached to a sound machine playing Kris Jenner’s “you’re doing amazing sweetie” on a loop. (This sound bite is turning 18 in 2025 if you needed a reason to run directly into fire today btw.)

Luckily for me, I knew from all the comments, DMs, emails, and views on my posts that nearly everyone felt like they were either behind or not enough. And although I regularly felt like this too, I knew in the grand scheme of things, I was doing fine.

But not everyone could see this. Social media blinded many of us with its obsession with perfection and highlight reels. It became a race of 1.8 billion millennials trying to be #1. It was a setup. A scam!

Statistically, we couldn’t all be the best. So what was wrong with being somewhere in the middle? Even if you were the actual halfway point, that would still mean you were doing better than 900 million other millennials. Yet people felt insulted when their lives hinted at average, thus sparking that perpetual and inevitable feeling of not being enough, which often led to depression and anxiety. It was relentless. It still is.

Like an Annoying Ex-Boyfriend, The Feeling of Not Being Enough Will Always Try To Come Back

When I published my book Average is the New Awesome five years ago today (please explain to me how it’s been half a decade since then), I wanted to help people understand that everyone feels like they’re not enough at times. Everyone feels average.

The book explains that “average” is yours to define, and that everyone will always define it differently. It encourages people to stop thinking that wild success is the only way they’ll achieve greatness and to accept that average is good enough—and that good enough is enough.

While I grew to accept my average-ness in my 20s and early 30s, things changed as I entered a new era of life: my mid-30s.

Today, I’m 36. I have two kids. I own a(n average) home. My weekends consist of dance class, birthday parties, and playground drive-bys. My expenses have grown exponentially, the biggest culprits being my obscene mortgage and child care. I rarely “go out,” but when I do, it’s to a 5:30pm dinner.

Something that has crept back, though, is the feeling of not being enough. Although I had conquered those feelings before, I changed and so did all of the people around me. None of the comparisons I taught myself to ignore years ago mattered anymore. It was a new game with higher levels and more players. The comparison trap was back.

Now, every day is once again a constant battle in my head trying to ward off thoughts that I’m not successful enough (I just got laid off, so this one is relevant), that I’m not well off enough, that I’m not healthy enough, and a new one–that I’m not a good enough parent.

I know that none of these things are true. I know that most people feel these things to their core every day. I know I will get a job eventually (while we’re on that topic, if you have any leads, please hit me up, it’s a job desert out here lol). I know I’m a good enough parent for how I want to parent (we’re all different).

I know accepting where I’m at will always be a struggle, even if I end up “above average” one day. And honestly, my 26-year-old self would probably consider 36-year-old me to be above average, although she would also be upset we did not create an award-winning television show yet. Who KNOWS where I’ll be in 10 years. But I know imposter syndrome and self-doubt will show up wherever that may be.

So what am I doing now? Listening to my OG advice of course. Average is awesome.

Out of 1.8 billion millennials, if I’m smack dab in the middle and doing better than 900 million millennials, that’s fucking great.

To be honest, I have no idea where I stand. Over the years, I’ve had people tell me I wasn’t average like it was some sort of compliment because I published a book. But I can still barely afford daycare. I still rely on a job to have health insurance. I still live in a mediocre-sized house (she’s not big, but she’s not small). I AM somewhere in the middle. And that’s fine with me—because I’m growing.

A few months ago, I measured my 3-year-old’s height at home for the first time.

When it comes time to measure her again, I’m not going to also measure her brother’s height and compare it to hers. I’m going to measure her height only and see how much she’s grown.

In all honesty, I could give two shits about what percentile she’s in for her height and weight, unless a doctor was concerned of course. Aside from that, there’s no reason to pay attention to where she stands against others because she’s her own person growing at her own pace.

Aren’t we all our own people growing at our own pace? Unless there is real, dire concern for our health or finances, shouldn’t we just let ourselves keep growing and track the progress?

In the past five years since publishing Average, I’ve had tremendous growth. I did multiple rounds of IVF and now have two amazing kids. I know I don’t have a job right now lol, but I’m technically making a lot more money. After searching for a home for over two years, we finally bought one and now I have a mortgage and equity (two things I wrote that I thought I’d never have in Average). Take that, avocado toast.

I’m also so much more appreciative of everything I do have.

We spend so much of our lives zoomed in on our own small worlds, we often forget to zoom out and see the full picture. Always zoom out. Always look around. If you don’t, you’ll never be able to appreciate what you have.

Sam

(Yes, that was a Blake Lively joke. Carry on.)

Happy 5th Book Birthday, Average is the New Awesome!

Average is the New Awesome was published Jan 7th, 2020, five years ago today! HELP ME, I’M NOSTALGIC. For some reason, Amazon is listing an incorrect publish date right now (it says April 2017, which is not right at all), so just ignore that!

Thank you for all the support over the years!!!!

If you haven’t read it, here are some links to buy. Support is still amazing. Buying, reading, reviewing (even if you just add stars). Thank you, thank you, thank you. Eternally grateful, etc. <3

Forever Millennials

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