Being overwhelmed by these feelings is perfectly alright and perhaps more common than you might think. I was at your age too.

You have ambitions for success, are willing to put in the work to achieve them and have witnessed / lived through a cautionary tale firsthand from your parents not planning as well as they potentially might have, from the information you are aware of.

Be thankful for what they were able to provide for you. Don't compare yourself to others. You only see the 'instagram' highlights and don't know their journey either.

You want success that makes you sleep easy at night and not the shallow kind such as a new car, which you may not be able to afford (so can be harmful to you) but could impress others.

So, now you just need to be pointed in the right direction to 'success'. My message for you is that you already seem to be on your way. What's would be helpful for you is that your mindset isn't too negative and that you aren't too hard on yourself.

Another commenter mentioned that they don't know what they want to do when they wake up. I truly feel the same. In part, maybe that's because I don't feel at ease where I am and still have ambitions for more (I'm close to 40), so am trying to reinvent myself and upgrade my skill set to match current and future demands to achieve more. It's perfectly fine to not know where you're going in life. Remain open to opportunities to find the path for you which you feel has significant potential.

You are at university so have some direction and are willing to upgrade your skill set (languages, etc. - good soft skills as they help communicate with /endear yourself to others and can help you relate to their thinking process).

Keep that mindset with you and follow through with your intentions. After university I started to upgrade my skill set with professional certifications that were recognised in my industry and formed a good basis for myself and others to recognise I had a knowledge base. After that, I kept going and chose to focus on those areas in my field that were useful but also of interest to me, to try and find a niche. They weren't formal qualifications but those were not as important at that stage, the knowledge and application were.

Whatever your field, you can find success through hard work and seizing opportunities. There are success stories in every field we know of and others that are forging the way in fields that may not have been known when you got into university, certainly not when I was a student.

So play to your personal strengths, but don't forget to 'play' as well - missed opportunities to enjoy yourself, to meet with friends, go on holiday and enjoy the present are also missed opportunities.