I feel like I've
always had an intense drive to do everything right. It's got to be
acceptable by my standards because if it meets my standards, it
should exceed the standards of others. Sometimes this becomes
intensely challenging though. My fourth quarter starts tomorrow, and
I feel like it could be the first really tough one that I'll have to
face. But that means it's a stepping stone for future quarters which
WILL get progressively tougher.
Last quarter I had
a lot of problems with one class. I have never in my life been so
frustrated as I was because what I thought was good was merely
mediocre in this teacher's eyes. I had to restart. I had to get
better. And when I got that 98 on my final project, I literally
rejoiced. My hours of work were worth it, my confidence was restored,
and my GPA was saved.
But wait, there was
another complication. Half of my grades for that class ended up
missing from the campus site. My GPA was not yet saved. What
happened? I gave it time, but time wasn't enough, so instead of
getting angry about it, I emailed the teacher. (I literally just did
this, so I have to wait for a response.) So my GPA is down from 4.0
to 3.97, and people often ask, “Well, what's the big deal? It's
still higher than mine.”
Well, sir, it is a
VERY big deal. I'm not upset yet because the drop was not because of
my own incompetency. But that very moment that it drops due to my own
faults will be the moment that I could lose it. My standard for
myself is very high. I, in no way, want to disappoint anyone; not my
family; not myself. Disappointment is something that I fear greatly,
so I do whatever I can to strive to achieve the goals I set for
myself, no matter how outlandish they are.
I just had a
conversation with someone. There are literally about 15 people in my
school with a 4.0 GPA, and for the moment, that number just dropped.
Basically, my status just dropped to “average honor student,” and
I can't have that. I must be “THE BEST HONOR STUDENT!” Sure I
wasn't Valedictorian or Salutatorian in high school, but I was in the
top 5 of my class, and that was phenomenal for me. (I never did find
out my ranking for sure...)
The great thing
about college is that they reward you for your grades. Having good
grades earns you scholarship money, which is extremely helpful when
your classes cost $2000 a piece. So, let the smart people have at it.
Actually, no, let the hard workers have at it. Even the most
intelligent people struggle.
I heard once that
there's always a cut off where the correlation of being great and
having a certain quality stops rising. In academics or success,
having a high IQ is useless because those people are typically too
lazy to work. It's the people with the slightly above average
intelligence who are more willing to work as hard as they can to be
as good as they can. That's the kind of person I feel I am. I'm not
the smartest person in the world. There's a lot that I don't know,
and I know that. But I'm always willing to learn and get better, even
if I feel like quitting will save me the headache. Taking a step back
lets me reexamine the situation so that I can get a better handle on
it and myself. Then I'll delve right in from a new angle, which
almost always works. (Except when working with Adobe Flash...then I
have a ragequit.)
The point is that I
like to do my best, and I think everyone should do their best. There
are a lot of obstacles on the path to success, and being able to
realize your own faults and being able to face and overcome them is a
great skill. Everything takes practice, even motivation.
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