"We are a failure," I tell myself at least once a week.

PalmI remember the day when, for the first time, I was able to verbalize that I was lost, that I didn't know what to do with my life, that perhaps I had failed. I was in Hong Kong with my boyfriend, about to finish a nearly four-month trip through Asia. We were on a long trip, and I felt like I had all the time in the world, the feeling that makes you feel comfortable starting on unfinished business. So I began to reflect out loud, constantly walking, putting one foot after the other: right, left, right, left. "Maybe I should have studied something else." Right, left, right, left. "I just wasn't brave enough." Right, left, right, left. "I did everything wrong." Right, left, right, left. From higher and higher, from my chest getting tighter and tighter. I remember the rhythm of my breathing, the constant rhythm, the traffic jam that made all the intrusive thoughts move very quickly. I hyperventilated and couldn't stop the torrent of words.

By the time we got upstairs, she was already bellowing. I sat down, dejected, and allowed myself to be vulnerable for a moment: "I've never heard of that. But I have no idea what to do from now on." I'd just quit my stable job after almost five years, but I didn't know why. The teenager I was had chosen her back then, in 4th year of secondary school, when at the last minute I decided I was doing the Social Baccalaureate and going to Barcelona to study Journalism. It terrified me.

"So, now what are you going to do?" they asked me constantly. I had to train myself to answer this question with just the right amount of sincerity and complacency. With my answer... It was as if I hadn't said anything, or as if I had said everything. I saw that I was about to crash.

It's been a while since that happened. People keep asking me about my future—which is still confusing—and I struggled not to tell myself, more than once a week, that we're a failure because of So Lucky That Lena. I thought I'd be a great director. I wanted to say relevant things about the female experience. I gave up on my dream. Now I've been working for people who don't give a shit for 15 years. If you shot me in the neck with a gun and asked me who's leading man, by noon I'd be Too Much –the latest series from the creator of Girls–, as if putting words to all this drama I'm ashamed to hear.

It's like that. We've been the generation of the internet, of opportunity, of our parents' frustrated lives. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" It seemed like you could dream as big as your imagination allowed. The range was endless, and I even had to try extracurricular activities, just in case the doll had some hidden talent. They signed me up for horseback riding, and within two days I wanted to quit because the animal scared me. I took swimming lessons, but these days I can only swim like a puppy or an octogenarian. My first and only year of ballet coincided with the moment my thighs started to grow, so my insecurities outweighed my desire to continue. However, expectations soon extended to my studies. "What career would you like to pursue?" And that pledge that is the phrase "you can do whatever you want." Achieving success seemed feasible, if you really set your mind to it.

They trusted us so much that now it's impossible not to feel constantly disappointed. And, somehow, we look for someone to blame. "I've discovered that I'm not even a tiny bit as important as they made me believe I was," Mariona Ramis confessed in a text about her parents that she wrote for the narrative workshop we've been doing together for the past six months. For half our lives we've believed otherwise, but none of us is that important. We're all right there, trying to find the exact balance between success and failure.