Me and my Mess

I seem to have a problem. Well, multiple problems, but the key outcome is that I keep screwing up. All my life people have told me how great and intelligent I am. So gifted and kind and well-rounded. Blah blah blah.

Do you detect a hint of disdain in that? The reason for that is, I don’t think I ever learnt accountability or the actual meaning of hard work. All through school, I could study the night before and still rock an A, or a high B at the very least. Hard work to me was just listening in class and occasionally doing my homework. But school is long over. And now I am actually required to work. But I don’t. If anything, I seem to have gotten lazier.

But all of that seems irrelevant to the reason for posting here. Why I am posting about how I am a lazy sack of whiny shit. Well, maybe it’s because I seem to have gotten myself into a jam. I have run out of chances. And now, after growing up in an environment where studying has the highest emphasis, I will have to drop out of university to get a job. This job will most likely be in the unskilled portion of the market, doing odd and random jobs, as I don’t have a degree. Why don’t I have a degree? Because I fucked up. I was stupid and I didn’t take one of my courses seriously. This follows a series of fuck-ups, and constantly having to repeat courses. But I know I am intelligent. I know I am in that top portion of intelligent people. I know that, because that’s what everyone told me: my parents (they kinda had to), my teachers, people I don’t even know. So why am I failing? What the hell is wrong with me?? This last course I failed because I just didn’t work at it. I kn0w it. My submissions were late. There were a couple I didn’t submit. I hated the course.

Obviously, I didn’t think it through. I sabotaged myself and now I have to deal with the consequences. What I don’t understand is why I did it. And now I will be destined to be the only one of my friends without a degree, with no real job prospects, and thus, no real life ambitions. All of my friends started working last year, some of them are younger than me. My sister just finished school and is starting university this year. Her future is bright and shining. And on top of it all, she is actually a hard-worker. She had it rough, but it made her a better person – always being compared to her older, and very “intelligent” sister. She was the odd one out – the arty and creative one in a maths-loving family. So she worked her butt off, and now she has what it takes to truly succeed.

I am not laying blame for my failures at anyone else’s feet. The fault is mine, and mine alone. But I can see the benefits of not treating your child like they are the next shining star, instead giving them some realism every once in a while.

I still haven’t gotten to the point of my posting here. Bare with me. I read through some previous posts and their comments. And I realised that I have this sick fanaticism for reading other people’s issues. I read stories with the writer’s depression laid bare, of the gruesome shit they have endured. Always, I empathise with the person suffering, whatever the cause of the suffering may be. I feel their pain. And then I read another story. I, myself, do not suffer from any lasting bouts of depression. The last time I was truly depressed was as a teenager. Then, I cried myself to sleep every night, and I had no idea why I was so unhappy. Since then, I suffered minor bouts which passed as quickly as they came. But now, I don’t feel that. It’s no that I don’t feel, I do. It’s just that, I don’t feel that deep sadness anymore. Sometimes it’s unnerving not to feel something I had gotten so used feeling every month. But all this is a side note to a part of my messed up psyche.

Anyway, this realisation made me think of how I kind of want to deal with my current mess. I sometimes think about some gruesome ending for me and then I will no longer be accountable. Only, I keep thinking about how my parents and sister and friends will be so shaken if I were to off myself. My parents would blame themselves, my sister would hate me, and my best friend would most likely fall into her own deep depression. So how do I avoid accountability without hurting those I love? I could die in an accident of some sort. But then someone else will likely get hurt. And if no one else is involved, then my family and friends will think me reckless and irresponsible. Just escalating the view they currently have of me. So. Basically, offing myself is not an option.

I know the whole “no problem is as big as you think it is” speech. I gave it countless times. But still, I want to escape the predicament I have put myself in. I hate this. I hate the person I have become. And I want to change, but without the accountability phase of it. And more to the point, when do I get to the glorious Garden of Eden that was promised me by all those people who think I am so bright. Everything I have done has just derailed me from that path. I’m an idiot, not in IQ, but in life.

I have been waiting so long to be done with my degree so that I can live my life. But I know that I should be living now, while studying. And maybe that may have made a difference and I would’ve done better. But maybe not. Maybe I would have just effed up even worse.

I should probably go to one of those behaviour analysts who can help me change my pattern of being a spoilt screw-up to being a successful and arrogant douche.

You will notice that I am deeply envious of the people who have made something of themselves and reached a level of success, no matter how small. I just want to have their level of dedication and motivation. Nothing more.