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.
5 comments
It seems you have trouble with finding motivation to accomplish your stuff. You need to search why it’s that way. You should take advantage of your intellectual capacities, ’cause you’re really lucky to have that, and I wish you could realise that professionnal success does not detemine who you are. It’s not equivalent to your worth as a human being.
I can relate to your story, a little, cause I never managed to find motivation for anything in my life. I basically quit everything that I undertake. The bad side of it, it’s that I’m not as smart as you are, and I’m keep ending up in stupid jobs that really depreciate me. But, more often than not, I still try to remember that I am more than this, even if it’s really hard to see when everybody around you is successful.
Please stay with us, we need people like you. And yeah, probably, professional help could help you if you find the courage to go and really try.
Good luck, and know that I care.
Thank you for reading my post and commenting. I don’t know why but your comment made me really emotional. (I try not to be emotional. Ever. Suppression is better.)
I don’t feel particularly intelligent, but thank you for your encouragement. I guess a part of the reason I am in this mess is because I didn’t want to quit. I could never handle being teased, so if I got teased for doing something, even if I loved it, I would quit. I quit things if I wasn’t the best, I quit if I thought the grass was greener on the other side (it usually was not). So this I stuck with. But it would appear that I hate it. I like the title more than the work, generally speaking. I know, in my head, that professional success does not determine my worth, but I don’t feel it. I feel like a failure and a disappointment. But I am, at least, trying to pick up the pieces.
You need to find something you will actually love and enjoy doing. Most people fall into this idea that they must immediately go to college and get a degree in some major that they are probably going to hate by graduation. Work for a while. Find what defines you. when you find that, tailor your education to that. Don’t feel the pressure to obtain a degree so young. Yes it may be beneficial but real world is experience is just as necessary as education.
Find things that will deflate any ego, create humbleness, reach the humanity in you, make you different from others, be self sufficient, and take responsibility for yourself and actions.
You will never change without taking accountability. That’s like wanting to be a successful entrepreneur and make millioms but never putting any hard work or dedication into making that success.
Realization sucks. We all need it. But what’s next?
Thank you for the advice. I am taking it to heart, though it is a little difficult making it stick. I had the option of taking a gap year, but had no idea what to do, and I wasn’t sure I would go back to studying. But now I am almost 25, and I should have some sort of idea of which path I would like to take. Shouldn’t I? Realisation definitely sucks. Especially the part where I know how much I have disappointed my father. (He never pressured me to study anything in particular, just told me to do my best at everything I do. Which, of course, I didn’t.) I know I need to work hard at anything I do, no matter what it is. I just feel like… I don’t know. Some mornings, most in fact, I don’t want to wake up.
Its good to hear you will be trying to pick up the pieces. Its alos ok to be emotional. let it out, there’s no shame in being human.
Its going to be tough I can tell. Finding that purpose and getting back on your feet is tough. But one day you’ll look back and understand that its part of life. Failing and succeeding are natural. Failure helps shape our character and teaches lesson. But it also an opportunity to come back better than ever.
Don’t feel pressured to find this path so quickly. Everything you do in life is your path to who your. Some people find direction and purpose in life at much older ages. Your young. 25 is still very young. Always remember its never to late to change because all you have is time. Give your self time to live.
Trust me. I had one path that I thought would be my life. But things changed, I got older, I experienced new things, I gave myself time when needed and I look back and I was happy for what i did and who I became. I still have a long road but it won’t walk itself right?
I know that feeling when you wake up and wish you didnt. I went to bed hoping that this sleep wouldn’t have to end. It sucked.
But you have to remember and find things in life that you want to wake up to. When you do wake up remember why your here. Remember those goals and what makes you happy and gives you that bounce in your step.
Its hard, it really is, I’ve been driven so close to end so many times.