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flyboy_foxI'm thinking again. I've got to do something about this.
I don't know what my problem is :\ For all the luck I've been given in my life, I just don't try.
I don't know what happened. When I was younger, before highschool, I was such an overachiever. Always did more than was expected of me. I loved to work. Sometimes the teachers would get mad at me for changing the rules of the homework assignments just to make it more challenging for myself. Maybe that's when I started to stop trying so hard, but when did I become so goddamn lazy?
I hate that I'm lazy. I hate to admit it, because I want to feel like I'm still a hardworker and trying my best. But I'm not. At all. In fact, since I dropped out of school at 14, I've probably been one of the laziest and slothful people on this planet. It makes me sick! So why do I do it?
The awful thing is, I do it because I can get away with it. Take college for instance. I'm doing an access course equivilent to getting 2 or 3 A-levels at school. I only have to be there 2 1/2 days per week, so you'd think my attendance would be pretty good, right? My attendance is probably about 40%. Sometimes I miss 2 weeks at a time before I bother going back in. You'd think they would have kicked me out by now, but they haven't. Because I'm actually not behind ._. I seem to be able to catch up with 2 weeks of work in about an hour once I'm back in class. My tutor is always remarking on my ability, and it makes me feel sick, because all my life since high-school I've been riding on my 'ability'.
Most people I know would consider me intelligent, I think. People who talk to me think I'm pretty educated. Then... I wonder what I could be if I actually started TRYING. I don't feel challenged at all by college and I never felt challenged at school either... I know that sounds like such a braggish thing to say, but it's the simple truth. School was too 'easy' for me. But that's only one side of a MANY splintered equation. I may be smart, but I am severely lacking in life skills. Academic intelligence is just one type of intelligence. There's also the intelligence of work ethic. Foresight. Effort and planning. Acknowledgements of ones faults! People who work hard and push forward are FAR smarter than I am in the long run. I want to be challenged, and University should hopefully offer me that challenge, but I'll never get there if I don't actually start trying again.
Thing is, when I do work, I work hard. I get carried away. I set fantastic projects for myself, just because I can. But it seems more and more rare that I find that spark. I used to be full of restless energy to create and achieve and push my limits... where did that go? I've had it too easy. The year before last, I landed myself an EXCELLENT full-time job earning £15,000 per year. Without any qualifications, the average wage is £8,000 per year... £10,000 if you're lucky. I was earning £15,000! I walked it. I wasn't even surprised. I got complacent, and that's such an ugly thing. And then I quit that job a year later to go to college, and look at me again, fucking that right up, just like everything else I've started since I left highschool.
I know I have potential... but here I am at 21, still living at home, doing next to nothing with my life, hating myself for it but never seeming to have the willpower to break the cycle for more than a few days.
I've gotta change. I've got to find that spark I used to have. Otherwise my life is going to be one big waste. I want so much to do something big in my life. Change the world, somehow... or at least make my little mark on it. But that's never going to happen if I just sit here like this feeling sorry for myself for something that's entirely my own fault. It's never too late to change. I can still do it, I just have to actually... um... try x.x
Sorry if any of this came across as arrogant. It's not intended... after all, natural intelligence and other such gifts are nothing to be proud of. It's how you use them that counts. And I'm only using a fraction of mine :\
I don't know what my problem is :\ For all the luck I've been given in my life, I just don't try.
I don't know what happened. When I was younger, before highschool, I was such an overachiever. Always did more than was expected of me. I loved to work. Sometimes the teachers would get mad at me for changing the rules of the homework assignments just to make it more challenging for myself. Maybe that's when I started to stop trying so hard, but when did I become so goddamn lazy?
I hate that I'm lazy. I hate to admit it, because I want to feel like I'm still a hardworker and trying my best. But I'm not. At all. In fact, since I dropped out of school at 14, I've probably been one of the laziest and slothful people on this planet. It makes me sick! So why do I do it?
The awful thing is, I do it because I can get away with it. Take college for instance. I'm doing an access course equivilent to getting 2 or 3 A-levels at school. I only have to be there 2 1/2 days per week, so you'd think my attendance would be pretty good, right? My attendance is probably about 40%. Sometimes I miss 2 weeks at a time before I bother going back in. You'd think they would have kicked me out by now, but they haven't. Because I'm actually not behind ._. I seem to be able to catch up with 2 weeks of work in about an hour once I'm back in class. My tutor is always remarking on my ability, and it makes me feel sick, because all my life since high-school I've been riding on my 'ability'.
Most people I know would consider me intelligent, I think. People who talk to me think I'm pretty educated. Then... I wonder what I could be if I actually started TRYING. I don't feel challenged at all by college and I never felt challenged at school either... I know that sounds like such a braggish thing to say, but it's the simple truth. School was too 'easy' for me. But that's only one side of a MANY splintered equation. I may be smart, but I am severely lacking in life skills. Academic intelligence is just one type of intelligence. There's also the intelligence of work ethic. Foresight. Effort and planning. Acknowledgements of ones faults! People who work hard and push forward are FAR smarter than I am in the long run. I want to be challenged, and University should hopefully offer me that challenge, but I'll never get there if I don't actually start trying again.
Thing is, when I do work, I work hard. I get carried away. I set fantastic projects for myself, just because I can. But it seems more and more rare that I find that spark. I used to be full of restless energy to create and achieve and push my limits... where did that go? I've had it too easy. The year before last, I landed myself an EXCELLENT full-time job earning £15,000 per year. Without any qualifications, the average wage is £8,000 per year... £10,000 if you're lucky. I was earning £15,000! I walked it. I wasn't even surprised. I got complacent, and that's such an ugly thing. And then I quit that job a year later to go to college, and look at me again, fucking that right up, just like everything else I've started since I left highschool.
I know I have potential... but here I am at 21, still living at home, doing next to nothing with my life, hating myself for it but never seeming to have the willpower to break the cycle for more than a few days.
I've gotta change. I've got to find that spark I used to have. Otherwise my life is going to be one big waste. I want so much to do something big in my life. Change the world, somehow... or at least make my little mark on it. But that's never going to happen if I just sit here like this feeling sorry for myself for something that's entirely my own fault. It's never too late to change. I can still do it, I just have to actually... um... try x.x
Sorry if any of this came across as arrogant. It's not intended... after all, natural intelligence and other such gifts are nothing to be proud of. It's how you use them that counts. And I'm only using a fraction of mine :\
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no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 01:58 pm (UTC)I hope that everything in your hight school become all right.
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Date: 2006-04-05 06:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 02:12 pm (UTC)Don't lose faith and never stop trying Jai, if you put your heart into it I know you can win. Best of luck bro ^^
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Date: 2006-04-05 06:50 pm (UTC)Thanks Sully. Finding the effort is hard, but you're right, I just have to focus on the things I want in the future. I'm still young, and there's still time to achieve it all as long as I want it enough to try hard for it. I'll bear that all in mind. ::Hugs::
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Date: 2006-04-04 06:12 pm (UTC)I didn't get in trouble the other day.
It ruined me. I could get it away with it...
So I just stopped trying at all. ^^;
>>>natural intelligence and other such gifts are nothing to be proud of.
Awww... take the one thing I'm actually proud of and squish it. ;-; xD;;
But seriously though, I really SHOULDN'T be proud of being able to draw.
I feel like a liar when I say I drew something. o_o;
Because I /did,/ but... I don't normally even THINK about what I'm drawing, I just take a pencil and it happens.
And then I'm taking all the credit so I'm like: '... but I didn't MEAN to... it just DID. ^^;'
That makes NO SENSE too.
Who's the credit supposed to go to then, anyhoo? xD;
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Date: 2006-04-04 06:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 08:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 06:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-04 09:04 pm (UTC)About laziness - same here, same here.. It's the awfulest problem I have. Getting the spark - that too, I call this problem "How to make one love something?" No, I haven't been able to find a solution yet. But my story is quite similar to yours, I suppose. Take my dream to be a programmer. When I used to be very very little, I wished I were a programmer. Probably because I had no computer while some of my friends did, so I kind of envied them and was chanted by the computer, wished to be a programmer so I could show everyone, and so on. I first sat at the computer at class 4 or 5, I think. Some time later my family finally bought one.. And some time after that I eventually started programming. It went awesome. I wrote several programs, like, dumb games (because I almost couldn't program), at my own initiative.. So.. And then it kind of spent itself.. Fin! Since then I was programming, well.. I was just programming. Sometimes. If I had wanted it, I would've spent at it all my free time. I achieved some pretty good results, for instance, I ranked 48th at the International Olympiad in Informatics (for schoolchildren, that is) in 2004 (However, in 2005 I ranked much much worse).
Nay. It isn't cool. As I was saying, I do program now. 1st - do the stuff at the university. Because I have too, else it will be simply bad. 2nd - participate at TopCoder, ~once a week. Yeah, and have an extracurricular course in Web programming (like, PHP, SQL). I suppose that's all. Now, I do envy many many people. Because they want and thus, can. Stupid fucks, they don't understand how much they have. That's probably the greatest possession one can have - a desire to do something.
Sometimes when I complain like that, people tell me, what's the matter? Get up and do what you want! NO. The problem is that I can't. I don't feel like it. Yes, it's so interesting to me, but it's not. I don't want to. I wish I wanted to. I think that's innate.
Anyway, that's how it is. Quite a lot of thoughts going through my head, I don't put them all in my LJ.
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Date: 2006-04-05 06:53 pm (UTC)Motivation is INCREDIBLY hard to find :\ Even if you really want something at the end of it all, it's not enough to give the drive to do it. It takes serious effort. But I guess it's something I need to do.
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Date: 2006-04-05 10:35 pm (UTC)Yeah, the motivation. Well, I don't know how to find it. It's great if you do.
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Date: 2006-04-05 07:46 am (UTC)Until then,
::Hugs::
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Date: 2006-04-05 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-04-05 09:00 pm (UTC)You know, I imagine you have to get sick of hearing this, but again I find myself able to relate.
Back in grade school, up until the latter years of high school, I was an overachiever. It felt nice to do it, and at the time I'm pretty sure I felt this way because we didn't know what the future would hold. We were young, innocent, and more optimistic than now. Also, we weren't developed enough to engage in many activities. It was either do work, or play. There was none of this 'philosophy' or politics that we find ourselves thinking about the older we get.
So...we were both busy as bees (Did I just say that? x.x) in the younger years. When did it change? I kinda wanna say the more reality opened itself up to us and the more we learned, the lazier we became. I don't know if that's a reason, but it's a hypothesis nonetheless. I think that somewhere I discovered that reward as a function of work is not a linear system. Not in the grand scale, at least. If ya give 100% effort your whole life you may end up with a job that pays, say, $100000 per year. But, if ya look at it, for some people, if they give 50% they won't end up with $50000 a year; they'll end up with $80000 or something.
Couple this with something. Forgive me if I sound arrogant as well, but couple this with the natural intelligence you speak of. Once the realization is made that 100% effort isn't too much greater than, say, 90%, work ethic begins to fall. It doesn't matter a significant ammount with some people, because, as you said, they can get by with it. I still don't know how to study. It's something I never learned how to do because I virtually never needed to do it.
And yes, the question will arise, time after time - What could we be if we did try our best, like I see many people having to do to keep up with coursework? It's always gonna plague people similar to us, and believe me, there's quite a few out there. Get by on ability, and wonder what would happen if we used ability and studying.
But...I can say one thing I think is true. If I gave 100%, I probably wouldn't be as happy as I am. As we mature, we find out what makes life enjoyable for us, and that's simply more important than other things. We can spend more of our time in discussion rather than simply in work and play. That adds another field that we simply didn't have as kids. We also discover that there's always work to be done, always something new to learn. But, one of the other things I've come to realize is that knowledge isn't everything. Doing what we need to be generally happy is, in my opinion, more important than doing what we could. Everyone feels this way a little bit. It just so happens that, in our cases, the things that make us happy do not rely on financial success or amassing a huge array of knowledge. Sure, it's nice, but for us there's more important things.
Of course, you are right - we do need to try. We do need to work to better other skills aside from academic intelligence. But ya don't need to beat yourself up over it too much - what's happenned is all in the past, and I know you know as well as I do that we can't dwell on the past too long and remain happy. God, there's so many times I'm screwed up bad. But...the present and future matter more to me now.
Once you find the spark that'll get you going in general again, you'll be fine. It's common to work real hard and then fall out of it. You sound like you're on a border of how much effort you give. You're floating around the point where your effort won't be enough to move ya forward and the point where it will be enough.
You don't need a large spark. Honestly, I don't think you would enjoy it if ya became a workaholic like you say you were as a kid. I just think you need enough 'oomph' to get you a little above where you are right now, because you'd be moving forward and you'd maintain happiness. I don't really know how to get that little push, but I know you'll find a way.
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Date: 2006-04-05 09:00 pm (UTC)Work is important - a work ethic is important. But far more important is being yourself and being happy. Whatever you do, keep that in mind.
::Huggles again::
And, by the way, ya didn't really come off as arrogant ^^; Others are right, though - you've got something to be proud of. PEople without it who have a better work ethic have that to be proud of, but you're definitely allowed to be proud of your abilities. Use them to make those you care about and yourself happy.
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Date: 2006-04-05 01:28 pm (UTC)The only reason I was allowed to move on from the 6th grade to the 8th grade (after skipping 7th just because) was because of that. Since then I have dropped out and before that I hadn't gotten a single grade above C on anything except tests and stuff.
We're totally almost in the same boat! xD
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Date: 2006-04-05 06:54 pm (UTC)