Eleanor Tiernan: Pressure to be successful is exhausting - but since I turned 40, I don't care

In her column, the comedian tells us why she's okay with letting people walk all over her

Eleanor Tiernan: turning 40 has come with life lessons.

Ever since I turned 40, a slow realisation has been dawning on me. It’s that perhaps I am not humanity’s leading lady. Perhaps it doesn’t really matter in the greater scheme of things whether this Gen-X comedian from Roscommon achieves legendary status. For decades, I’ve been pursuing personal success with an anxious fervour that imagines anything less than world domination as a failure. It contains the assumption that me being on top is just how it’s supposed to be.

Now, however, with social media bringing a mountain of evidence of other people’s genius into my awareness, my belief in my own is structurally failing. What’s surprising to me, however, is that not only do I not feel perturbed by this new feeling, but I quite enjoy it.