It is difficult for me to write about myself coherently. I go through many moods and have many fleeting passions and goals. I get jealous and envious of those who have accomplished a lot. I am motivated by jealously, until motivation dissipates quickly. I’m a roller coaster of work-ethic. I’ll have periods where I’m incredibly diligent (working fifteen hours a day on a project) to a period where I am just comfortable sitting and sleeping an entire day. In short, I doubt anyone understands me, because I don’t quite understand myself.
This post, after deleting all the previous ones before it, is about my year of the failure. I was really burned out at the end of 2008, and I adopted a nasty habit of playing video games (namely, one). I’ve flirted with the nasty obsession that is Warcraft 3 before, but this time I got really hooked onto “Footmen Frenzy 5.4,” a game ages old, but yet provided an escape for reality. The problem with video games is, even when you get good at it, it doesn’t always give you more enjoyment in life. The simple sound from a video games that details you’ve “leveled” up is an addicting feeling …. because it’s so much easier to improve in a video game than in life. I tried to escape the game, but I kept on going back to it.
I put a lot of my life’s dreams and goals in 2009. I wanted to learn Arabic (I did not), I wanted to be phenomenal in Finance (I improved, but not as much as I liked), I wanted to write Iphone Apps, sell them, and be wealthy (I never wrote one app), and I wanted to make long lasting friendships with new people (also, a miserable failure). To this day, procrastination hurts and cuts me deeper than I’ve imagined. I learned that I’m not as smart as I thought I was, and that there is no secret escape to putting in the hours to master any topic. In years before, I was able to coast to do well in class, this year was a painful reminder that not all things are easy. Life has been kind to me, and it feels almost-silly to sit and complain about how difficult times can be, but I also realized this year that life will catch up to me. Hiding behind witty banter will not always mask ignorance or let me feign expertise in any subject matter. Although it hurts, the majority of people are average. There is nothing to hint that I’m outside of the majority.
I’ve made some insight into my psyche. I expect too much of what I can do in a limited amount of time. It allows me to feel that I can procrastinate, because I always feel that I’ll be able to pull it off. It’s a serious problem that will continue to plague me if I don’t fix it now. I dream and expect too much of my self and then don’t put the work effort back in. My GPA has tanked from a 3.84 to a 3.6. It’s still moderately high, just not as impressive as it once was. I’m too ambitious to live that down. It gnaws at me daily.
But, I do have to accept that with all the failures and shortcomings that I have made, life allows me to move forward. I can fix this shortcoming of a year (thankfully, it’s not too late), but will require serious time and effort. I can’t coast anymore, and I need to sit down and really find passion in self-improvement.
