Leaving the under-achiever behind

I think I finally understand the source of all the stress and anxiety in my present life. Yes, part of it is due to the fact that the classes in year 2 are more demanding and I have a lot on my plate. However, the root cause is simple. I care more.

I have always been a chronic underachiever that was completely okay with being an underachiever. I have never been the sort to obsess over whether I am going to get an A. I have never believed that I had the capacity to top the class, or even wanted to. I've always shunned competition, because it was just easier and an A- with very little work is infinitely more enjoyable to achieve than an A with hard work. Basically, I coasted by on my intelligence and was satisfied with what it could bring me with minimal effort.

Now however, the goal of getting into grad school puts me right into competition with other A minuses. I am forced into competition, forced to care, forced to expect more from myself. No longer is underachieving okay, instead, I need to work my butt off fighting with these other intelligent and driven individuals. I am stressed because I know that I can achieve if I put my best foot forward. Finally I feel the need, the fire, the urgency to achieve. Now that I am actually working hard academically, I am anxious because I do not know if I actually have the ability to be in the top. Working hard means that I don't have an excuse of not working hard to fall back on. Do note though that 'working hard' is very relative. See what I did there? I gave myself another excuse. =D

All this needing to prove myself to myself is so infinitely exhausting. Although I must admit that I am looking forward to seeing just how able I actually am.

The restrictions of a decent life

From W. Somerset Maugham: Of Human Bondage

"He had thought of love as a rapture which seized one so that all the world seemed spring-like, he had looked forward to an ecstatic happiness; but this was not happiness; it was a hunger of the soul, it was a painful yearning, it was a bitter anguish, he had never known it before. he tried to think when it had first come to him. He did not know. He only remembered that each time he has gone into the shop, after the first two or three times, it had been with a little feeling in the heart that was pain; and he remembered that when she spoke to him he felt curiously breathless. When she left him it was wretchedness, and when she came to him again it was despair.

He stretched himself in his bed as a dog stretches himself. he wondered how he was going to endure that ceaseless aching of his soul."


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I must admit that it was the tasteless melodrama of the above passage that captured my attention. It really is no wonder that Wuthering Heights was my favourite novel when I was younger. At this age though, when maturity and levelheadedness is supposed to rule, I feel almost guilty to find the above appealing. Alas reckless doomed passion! You have no place in a life of commitment, responsibility, self-discipline and christianity.

Alive and Functioning

I am a highly functioning individual.

Every battle that we fight teaches us something about ourselves. In my case, I have learnt that fear, anxiety, tears, breakdowns and obsession cannot keep me from accomplishing what I set out to do. For the past 2 weeks I have seen myself commit hundreds of pages to memory through a film of tears. I have dragged myself to class despite waking up to a feeling of dread. I have held on white knuckled to my priorities even when everything was falling apart. I function.

I function because of an infinitely loving God who gave me the strength, who heard my prayers and answered them. Thank you.

---> Alive and Functioning

Idealism

From Of Human Bondage by W.Somerset Maugham

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"He did not know how wide a country, arid and precipitous, must be crossed before the traveller through life comes to an acceptance of reality. It is an illusion that youth is happy, an illusion of those who have lost it; but the young know they are wretched, for they are full of the truthless ideals which have been instilled into them, and each time they come in contact with the real, they are bruised and wounded. It looks as if they were victims of a conspiracy; for the books they read, ideal by the necessity of selection, and the conversation of their elders, who look back upon the past through a rosy haze of forgetfulness, prepare them for an unreal life. They must discover for themselves that all they have read and all they have been told are lies, lies, lies; and each discovery is another nail driven into the body on the cross of life."

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My Dream Boy

A friend of mine was asking about my dream boy the other day. See, it was a hard question to answer because I have an idea of what would be good boyfriend material, or what would be suitable husband material. But a dream boy? That's taking it into fantasy territory. At this moment in time though, the answer cannot be clearer.

My dream boy will have slightly curled chin-length hair, the kind that just about makes a pony-tail. He is tall, thin and pale... beautiful almost. He rides an awesome motorbike everywhere he goes and best of all, he keeps a helmet specially for me. He is a photographer and he makes me his art. In his eyes, I am the most beautiful. He is slightly awkward, reticent almost in front of strangers, but becomes the most charming creature when surrounded by those he dearly loves. Yes, my dream boy is a cliche. :) Who cares, someone like that should exist only in our imaginations. That way he can remain perfect and unattainable.

Midnight Restlessness

The most beautiful girl in the world.

Today, someone said the sweetest thing a boy could say to a girl, to me. Unfortunately, he was talking about someone else. :) The person's exact words?

"her beauty makes me smile"

Isn't that the loveliest set of words ever? Especially since it comes from a real life, slightly abashed human being and not some cliched media induced setting. Thing is, the girl that he was talking about wasn't exactly a publicly acknowledged beauty, and he knew that. But to him, she was the most stunning girl he had ever met, and no one else even came close.

I think I would be most happy if I ever had the chance to be as lucky as her.