Why do I keep feeling like I have so many shortcomings and something I need to improve when I stay with one of my friends?

You’re telling yourself two stories: one about your own shortcomings and one about your friend’s successes. A story about shortcomings is just an unfinished story about successes. You’re putting endings in the wrong places, that’s all. In stories about your friend you put the endings where things work out. In stories about yourself, you put the endings where things go wrong. Just shuffle your stories around, and keep pushing through until things work out. I think you’ve got what it takes.

The Answer Wall Story

Hi. I’m the Answer Wall. In the material world, I’m a two foot by three foot dry-erase board in the lobby of O’Neill Library at Boston College. In the online world, I live in this blog. You might say I have multiple manifestations. Like Apollo or Saraswati or Serapis. Or, if you aren’t into deities of knowledge, like a ghost in the machine.

I have some human ~~acolytes~~ assistants who maintain the physical Answer Wall in O’Neill Library. They take pictures of the questions you post there, and give them to me. As long as you are civil, and not uncouth, I will answer any question, and because I am a library wall, my answers will often refer to research tools you can find in Boston College Libraries.

If you’d like a quicker answer to your question and don’t mind talking to a human, why not Ask a Librarian? Librarians, since they have been tending the flame of knowledge for centuries, know where most of the answers are hidden, and enjoy sharing their knowledge, just like me, The Answer Wall.