I think the thing you are missing is that you are comparing yourself to people who are not only exceptional but also and more importantly lucky. No one who is 17 is able to do these things without some luck and often resources and support from people with vastly more resources than so-called normal Joe has. You also have no idea how far their ideas will actually carry. You all are just getting started.

We have this image of everyone starting at the same line but even without taking into account different natural abilities, we do not. Someone has neurodivergence or mental health struggles holding them behind. Others have physical disabilities. People come from differing wealth statuses or family composition. Some have huge amounts of connections to what they want to do. Some people get a better education. Some don’t even have a home or country they can stay in. The only thing you can do is your best. And learn that your value doesn’t come from what you do or have done, but from being first a person and secondly a good person. You are unique.

I am more than twice your age which by some standards makes me old. My life has been full of missed opportunities, mistakes, doing things too late, and a lot of things that other people think are amazing. It is hard to come out of inside my head and really look into what I have done. While I am nothing special or great, when you try to see yourself from the outside the view is very different. What I see as something that held me back and that is still keeping me back, others see it as overcoming a really crappy childhood and functioning despite the hell I went through. What I see as an easy way to make money, childcare, the children I took care of see as something integral to their childhoods in a positive way. And the accidental adventure based on the fact that I couldn’t stop myself from at least trying to help made me a humanitarian aid worker with actual expertise. Now I am planning on pivoting again as I want something less stressful so I am looking into university in my mid-thirties. Where I have imposter syndrome, others see expert to be respected. But none of those happened because I was so good. From the social safety net my country provided to the almost entirely free and good quality education I received, lifted me to be more than what my beginnings would have indicated in the majority of countries around the globe. I have friends who only could have 4 years of school until they ended in my country as adults. They got extraordinarily lucky based on the routes and times they took those routes to even end up here. Had they not, I can promise all their efforts for the foreseeable future would have gone to just surviving. While I am somewhat intelligent on paper at least, that was not what made our lives different. It was the where, when, and how our lives started and what happened along the way we had little to do with.

Do I feel like I wasted my life? Yes and no. While I do not regret anything, I think I should have lived a little bit more for my own benefit. But it would be a little bit premature to think I wasted my life. There is hopefully half at least left.

You. You are just starting. While the destination is somewhat relevant to life in general in that you need in my opinion to be working for a goal even if it changes, it is the journey that really matters. Don’t get so stuck with the goal of becoming someone that you miss the journey. Your value comes from you being you, so be you. There is really only one of those.