At the age of nineteen Rachel almost failed her college admission. She was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her, she couldn't fail at anything, so she passed, barely, and therefore didn't have to worry about opinions and commentary, and life went on, as usual.
At the age of twenty-six Rachel almost couldn't find a job. She was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her. By this time they were different people, but she was too distraught to notice. She couldn't fail at anything, so she got a job, eventually. Not the one she wanted, or even liked, but she did, and therefore didn't have to worry about opinions and commentary, and life went on, as usual, with the amendment that "the usual" was slightly less enjoyable than before.
At the age of thirty-three Rachel quit said job to spend time with her babies. She was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her. By this time they were, again, different people, but she was too self-conscious to notice. She couldn't do anything that didn't fit with the generally agreed upon norms of her social circle, so she moved heaven and earth to go back to work. By now she'd already started realizing that the career she had envisioned was never going to happen, so she did the responsible thing, worked hard and kept her dreams to herself. It was the socially acceptable thing to do, therefore she didn't have to worry about opinions and commentary, and life went on, as usual, with the amendment that the new usual was one without dreams.
At the age of forty the option of giving up in order to avoid confrontation suddenly became unavailable to Rachel and her life didn't allow her to coast anymore. She had to worry about opinions and commentary, was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her and people enthusiastically obliged, dumping the entire backlog of criticism, disapproval and contempt at her feet. By now they were, yet again, different people, and, for a change, she did have the sense to notice.
It finally dawned on Rachel that living on anxious and mortified in order to appease constantly changing groups of people was a very unhealthy lifestyle and definitely not one she could sustain long term. She realized she had things to contribute to the world and her views mattered.
She took a stern look at her life, kept what she liked and ditched what she didn't, got used to opinions and commentary and published her writing (yes, the one she had carefully stashed in a drawer because she was anxious and mortified of what people would think of her). She started learning things again and cultivated useless but personally rewarding skills. She no longer hesitates to voice her opinion in public and stopped worrying about failure.
