(cue family stuff here)
Ever since February of this year. Yeah, I’d say it’s since then, and my recounting of the events are quite disorganized due to me myself being disorganized, go figure, but me and my “family” have had quite the squabble about my future (involving college attendance and all that). A squabble that is primarily dealt with in silence, and furthermore inside of my own head with my perceptions of them no doubt, but I know that every time I lash out at my father for example with curse word galore, which is really both on a surface level and deeper than that me telling him that a 50 year old man shouldn’t be so behind in the way he goes about life in comparison to someone who has only really graduated high school, they understand how I feel to some extent. They get quiet alright in the days that follow, and oddly enough, quite passive. Maybe even humbled dare I say, but at the same time they seem to be negligent of their own mistakes which is why we are in this kind of mess in the first place, even if, I will admit, my father in this case was also dealt a bad hand by having to deal with my mother. And my mother, considering everything, is quite despicable due to that, which I will never say isn’t the case. I really do think she’s a lost cause (and I have no fucking idea how I’m going to put up with her for example in the next 4 and a half years) but it’s primarily because my dad isn’t supposed to be the same that he receives the most criticism in the first place.
Problem is, going back to the mention of February, these people have not changed in months despite the reminders in their lives and reality being constant, and the failures they encounter being due to hypocrisy. Thing is, some of these traits are not the worst, they are human traits and also somewhat temporary traits that everyone will have from time to time potentially, just to different degrees and varieties. Only problem for these two particular people who are still supposed to be acting as my guardians for all intents and purposes is that they have it as a learned habit. I kid you not. They are at such an age in their life in which they should have learned such things long ago, or at least decreased the frequency of them, but hey, from the limited perspective of someone who is not even a year into legally being considered an adult, that’s not the case. I guess I make up for that perspective by taking into account how I’ve lived with them for more than a decade at this point while having some sort of brain to see what’s going on. But then that also places quite the heavy and extreme emphasis on my failures if things are like this. Shit.
(cue going off topic here)
I mean, you could say that we don’t remember every detail of all the steps we have taken to get where we are today, I’d agree with you there, but it seems too simple looking back for me and the people around me to have simply done the right things in hindsight. It truly does. I’ve been considered somewhat “bright” in classes due to my ability to ramble in a sort of formulated matter like what you see here, but quite obviously I don’t think people with a good head on their shoulders make suboptimal decisions too often. I also don’t necessarily think I have a “good” head on my shoulders, hence the importance on training it and not wasting the days away assuming that everything just happens for heck’s sake. I mean, damn, I don’t think any IQ score is of importance if part of making the right decisions is decision making itself, alongside the proper preparation for said decision making, and I’m bringing that up because some people think it somehow bypasses the value of tangible information. Based on a few models (they are a bit too small concept wise to be considered models in this case but you get the idea) of the world:
such a thing isn’t really the case. Of course, you could say that it makes things “quicker” but regardless there’s a lot of necessary hoops the mind has to jump through decision wise before one is actually capable of making the optimal (or as the bounded rationality thing says, satisfactory) choice in the first place. Heck, if we think about it as an algorithm to arrive at the right decision even, in terms of the time things take everything is just “good enough”. Nothing is perfect, everything is just “good”, the amounts between the goodest you can find and the most optimal solution varying wildly between situations. The problem is that you are taking an approach of estimation there when it comes to the quality of the solution, when, if you had gathered more tangible information that you quite frankly would not have been able to know or quite possibly even infer otherwise, you wouldn’t need to estimate. Arguably enough, the value of what such estimations provide in such situations (such as saved time, funds, all sorts of resources) pale in comparison to admitting, at least situationally, that one should at the very least know more than what they know currently, and therefore gaining the solution that actually holds up as a result of that.
Doesn’t matter if you could build a house with one plank of wood due to your skill when that depends on acquiring the plank of wood in the first place. Smartest move is to start and not stop, to squeeze the most out of whatever lemons you have regardless of whatever somebody else’s batch looks like, because fundamentally without lemon juice you’ll have a hard time making anything tasty.
That is, if you like lemon…?
(cue more family stuff here)
Either way, a thousand words of running around the point besides, this was originally supposed to be a post stating that, based off my previous one, I’m making the stupidest decision of my life to stay with people that arguably put me in danger with their carelessness in order to finish up one’s college degree faster. An estimated 3 years and a half faster, with the added benefit of not needing to work full time hours for the duration of my undergraduate program. Only thing is that I’m playing it unsafe and I now really need to work within this situation, no buts or ifs. No taking up CompTIA certifications as soon as possible then getting enough to acquire an IT job (instead of warehouse work, a trades apprenticeship or something like working at Starbucks because this is where my skills seem to apply the most) and saving up as much as I could from as many work hours as one could possibly obtain, only to move wherever the country would offer the most affordable (and decent) housing apartment wise and plan my next moves there. Just sticking with whatever this is. Shit.
Yeah, I’ve already considered such alternatives since February. Long winded way to tie it back, but I’ve been deciding on one or the other for literal months, with pretty much the same information and more above presented each time to me. The answer may seem more obvious to people outside of the situation, but I can’t help but feel like this scenario is, well, repulsive. Not even just crappy, but not good to the point of me potentially wanting to make a decision that’s even worse taking into account the factual aspects of things. This is even considering how I need to, for certain, get into a PhD program with these 4 to 5 years, making sure everything looks right and tidy enough for all the factors. Although quite obviously, at this rate it’s not about getting into any program or something at a stupidly high up university like MIT, it’s about making sure I narrow things down to the right program, considering everything that makes such a thing “right” for the student involved personally.
Getting a bit off topic again, and this post is a bit too long considering the time of others so I’d cut it there. I appreciate all the people I have seen commenting and making posts actively here, makes people like me feel a little bit less alone in life sucking I would assume. Not really sure what compelled me to head over to a forum like this if that’s what you call it, but I do remember feeling quite in tune with all the posts I read back when I didn’t think I would need to make an account of this sort. Still do, quite frankly.