coming to terms with my own mediocrity
I was not born to be mediocre. Scratch that, I
was born to be mediocre -- in a pit of a town with average folk for family -- but I managed to get out and go to school and do a few non-mediocre things. I was pointed in a non-mediocre direction. But when life was left up to me, I just sort of lived it. I made a ton of bad decisions. I made friends with the wrong people. I gave up the best friend I had for a piece of trash who was a liar and a cheat. Aforementioned best friend let me come back.
So I got a second chance to be good, to do good things, to give back to them something useful. I figured I'd go to school and learn stuff that would be relevant for us, or at the very least put myself in a position to meet people and make a positive impression. Along the way, I lost that goal and thought I'd use school to do something for myself -- take a different track, get a different degree, go off and work in another field. I'm a little slow, so it's taken me awhile to realize that these extra things for myself are the ones that take the most out of my day -- the day I'm supposed to spend working.
When time for these extra classes comes around, if I am working and cannot leave, I don't leave. I realize it's not good to miss class and I certainly have a fair amount of guilt about it because I do not like being disrespectful to the instructors. But my work comes first. One day, I was sitting around with some classmates and we were discussing how we were doing in the class. As were were discussing the pedagogical stylings of a particular instructor, I told them that I thought her biggest problem was that she is too good for us. The instructor expects a certain level of dedication to the class, and responsibility by the student to hold up their end of the bargain. This is an entirely fair and proper assumption to have, but I can't meet these expectations.
I was wandering through blogland, reading the blogs of the academics working in fields that interest me. I want to have written the essays and books they've written. I know I have the intellect, but don't have is the time or the purpose. I am a mediocre student. The closest I'll get to Stanford is driving by on the way to the mall. I'll finish up the classes in my major, do an MBA at this medicore school, and be done with it.
I'm never going to do anything great, but I'll meet my responsibilities and stay where I am...enough of this thinking I'm meant to go elsewhere and do good. So the answer to the question "is this all there is?" is "uh, yeah"...and I think I'm ok with that.
