the wrong models

France, evening

Does it happen to everyone to see a couple and think "oh, I would like to be like them", to see someone who has the job of your dreams and think "oh, I would love to be her" and so on and so on? It is not jealousy mine, it is more seeing someone living something that I wish I will live too exactly in that way.
Well, models can be wrong sometimes. In my case, for sure. My infinite imagination makes me creating profiles and lives for the people I decide to be my model. I project on someone else the idea of how something should be. It happened to me already three times, two in terms of work, one in terms of a couple I know. I thought, they had it all.
Instead, they did it, but just in my head.
So, I had a cold shower when I woke up.
First model. One of my PhD supervisor. Incredibly smart, incredibly nice, funny, successful guy. I always knew I could never be like him, I am not that talented in what I am doing, not as much as he is. What I didn't realize is that my model almost destroyed his health and his life doing anything else beside working day and night. He wore himself out, till a point in which I didn't even recognize anymore the nice guy that was in him once. I met him recently, he looks good now. He said that he realized that he was destroying his health for everyone except him and so he decided to change his life style. He is still successful, but I guess in a more normal way.

I thought he had it all, instead he was miserable. First wrong model (or at least, wrong when he was a model to me).

Second. My boss in the USA. The first time I met my future boss, I thought wow, this person has a great job at a great University, a great partner, a cool house and two nice kids. This person has it all. I came back to Italy and I remember to tell to my grandma "I wish I could be like that one day". Now, I wish even in a stronger way to never became like that. It turned out that a) I don't think this person is that happy + is not that good in what she does + looks extremely frustrated + is an horrible boss + everything looks like a nice cover for something that it is probably not that pink. Result, not only this person is not my model anymore, but it became exactly the opposite. Someone you see and think "I know exactly how I don't want to end up".

Third, this couple I know. They were great. Amazing love story, she strongly wanted him, completely different characters that made up for how much they loved each others, great in working together, one following the other around the world and vice-versa, supporting each other. Just great! A really great match to my eyes. It turned out that probably what it looked like a pink life to me was instead a bit more of a grey life. They split after long time. And this made me extremely sad. I thought that if they made it beside all the difficulties, then there would be hope also for me.

This to say, that maybe I should stop to live in my imaginary world, to project my fantasies of the future life I would like to have on other people and instead, living more. I am just not sure from where to start..................