It's me, again!
I’m always pretty impressed with my ability to get over times of hardship. I think the key is isolating what it is that’s really making me upset in the first place. Warning: I’ll be using a lot of metaphors to describe what I mean, so if you don’t want to have to decipher meaning, just skip over this.
My freshman year, one of my friends was telling me about an experience one of his Honors professors had. Once, she was in a convenience store when it got robbed. This guy barged in, held his gun out and shouted for everybody to get down on the ground. The store was relatively crowded so there were people everywhere. The guy then went around to each person and demanded that they give him their valuables, wallets, purses, etc. Well, the professor is getting increasingly more nervous and terrified as he makes his way over to her. He’s finally right over her…but then he passes her and goes to the next person. She breathed a sigh of relief and reflected on the disaster that she just narrowly avoided. That is, until she started thinking about the reason why he passed her over. Suddenly, she got offended. Why in the world would he not ask her for her money? Did she not look like she had any? Did she look poor? What was it about her that made that perfect stranger assume she didn’t have any money? The tragedy she just avoided seemed so insignificant compared to the self-doubt she placed upon herself.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a sketch on SNL. These four lady friends meet up at a restaurant. As they are sitting down, they all complain about this homeless guy right outside the restaurant that was shouting obscenities at each one of them as they came in. Things like, “Hey there, wanna ride my bologna?” They all go around the table and say what he said to them until they get to the last girl. She sheepishly says, “Well, he didn’t say anything to me…” The others say, “Consider yourself lucky.” And she says, “Yeah, but why didn’t say anything? Am I not pretty enough? What is it?”
I got a good laugh out of both of those stories and, when I was thinking about them, I realized that there was a common thread with what I’m experiencing. If anyone knows anything about me, I like being the best at things. It’s not necessarily that I’m an overachiever; I just think that in order to be completely satisfied with something I’m working on, I need to be better at it than my peers. This is where a lot of my determination comes from and it’s worked out pretty well. When I’m working on a video assignment, I love trying to get the highest grade! And when I’m working on a PR case, I don’t consider my job complete until I’m in the top percentile. Thinking back on what I just typed, I think I’m condensing it too much. When I’ve put my best effort forward, I like to be rewarded with an honor. But, here’s an amendment. I’m not satisfied with a top honor if I feel that I didn’t do as well as I could have done. For example, I just got my advertising campaign back in the mail. I got a 99% on it and my professor pointed out in his notes that he thought my work went well beyond anyone else’s in the class (Note: I don’t think this was a compliment for me as much as an insult for them, haha). I’m still kind of dissatisfied with that grade because I know in my heart that I didn’t do my best on that paper as I could have. Sure, he gave me a good grade, but I blame that on his already low standards. I deserved something lower. None of this is about me being conceited (I’m not telling you any of this to brag, I’m just trying to give you some perspective) and I don’t set unreasonably high goals for myself. I just understand my potential and I live my life to try to achieve that potential. Generally speaking, it works really well for me. That is, until I’ve done my best, worked to my greatest potential and I still fail to meet any given expectations. There’s still someone out there that’s better at this given thing. This is the very reason why I gave up sports.
Well, I thought that I was a really good boyfriend. And I think for the most part, I did everything a good boyfriend would do. But, yet, there is someone out there better at it than me. I don’t like being misrepresented and I don’t like knowing that there is someone naturally better at my role than me. That’s the only thing about this whole thing that bothered me!
Can you believe it? Am I sad I don’t have the girl anymore? No, when I think about it, I’m not really upset about that at all. It’s like in those two illustrations above. Instead of being upset at the face-value tragedy, I’m upset at my own personal failures. Now, realize that I know that it’s her problem if she didn’t appreciate me…but that doesn’t help me shake the feeling that perhaps there was something I could have done to be better than that other person.
Now, with that all being said, I should point out that I’m totally over everything I was sad about (which is why I’m even writing this). I’m actually doing pretty well and I have some big plans for this summer, including personal contact with Amanda Bynes! I have an angle that I really think will work. Thank you, PR training!
On a separate note, Kate had made a lot of different promises to me in the last couple of weeks, all of which she has broken. There is one last promise that she swore she would keep. I’m keeping up my end of it, but she’s made it clear that she’s already broken it. I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, but given her track record, I don’t have high hopes. Oh well. If she’s even still out there, maybe she’ll check in. After all, she is my best friend! I was so thankful at the possibility that we could return to that.
My freshman year, one of my friends was telling me about an experience one of his Honors professors had. Once, she was in a convenience store when it got robbed. This guy barged in, held his gun out and shouted for everybody to get down on the ground. The store was relatively crowded so there were people everywhere. The guy then went around to each person and demanded that they give him their valuables, wallets, purses, etc. Well, the professor is getting increasingly more nervous and terrified as he makes his way over to her. He’s finally right over her…but then he passes her and goes to the next person. She breathed a sigh of relief and reflected on the disaster that she just narrowly avoided. That is, until she started thinking about the reason why he passed her over. Suddenly, she got offended. Why in the world would he not ask her for her money? Did she not look like she had any? Did she look poor? What was it about her that made that perfect stranger assume she didn’t have any money? The tragedy she just avoided seemed so insignificant compared to the self-doubt she placed upon herself.
A couple of weeks ago, there was a sketch on SNL. These four lady friends meet up at a restaurant. As they are sitting down, they all complain about this homeless guy right outside the restaurant that was shouting obscenities at each one of them as they came in. Things like, “Hey there, wanna ride my bologna?” They all go around the table and say what he said to them until they get to the last girl. She sheepishly says, “Well, he didn’t say anything to me…” The others say, “Consider yourself lucky.” And she says, “Yeah, but why didn’t say anything? Am I not pretty enough? What is it?”
I got a good laugh out of both of those stories and, when I was thinking about them, I realized that there was a common thread with what I’m experiencing. If anyone knows anything about me, I like being the best at things. It’s not necessarily that I’m an overachiever; I just think that in order to be completely satisfied with something I’m working on, I need to be better at it than my peers. This is where a lot of my determination comes from and it’s worked out pretty well. When I’m working on a video assignment, I love trying to get the highest grade! And when I’m working on a PR case, I don’t consider my job complete until I’m in the top percentile. Thinking back on what I just typed, I think I’m condensing it too much. When I’ve put my best effort forward, I like to be rewarded with an honor. But, here’s an amendment. I’m not satisfied with a top honor if I feel that I didn’t do as well as I could have done. For example, I just got my advertising campaign back in the mail. I got a 99% on it and my professor pointed out in his notes that he thought my work went well beyond anyone else’s in the class (Note: I don’t think this was a compliment for me as much as an insult for them, haha). I’m still kind of dissatisfied with that grade because I know in my heart that I didn’t do my best on that paper as I could have. Sure, he gave me a good grade, but I blame that on his already low standards. I deserved something lower. None of this is about me being conceited (I’m not telling you any of this to brag, I’m just trying to give you some perspective) and I don’t set unreasonably high goals for myself. I just understand my potential and I live my life to try to achieve that potential. Generally speaking, it works really well for me. That is, until I’ve done my best, worked to my greatest potential and I still fail to meet any given expectations. There’s still someone out there that’s better at this given thing. This is the very reason why I gave up sports.
Well, I thought that I was a really good boyfriend. And I think for the most part, I did everything a good boyfriend would do. But, yet, there is someone out there better at it than me. I don’t like being misrepresented and I don’t like knowing that there is someone naturally better at my role than me. That’s the only thing about this whole thing that bothered me!
Can you believe it? Am I sad I don’t have the girl anymore? No, when I think about it, I’m not really upset about that at all. It’s like in those two illustrations above. Instead of being upset at the face-value tragedy, I’m upset at my own personal failures. Now, realize that I know that it’s her problem if she didn’t appreciate me…but that doesn’t help me shake the feeling that perhaps there was something I could have done to be better than that other person.
Now, with that all being said, I should point out that I’m totally over everything I was sad about (which is why I’m even writing this). I’m actually doing pretty well and I have some big plans for this summer, including personal contact with Amanda Bynes! I have an angle that I really think will work. Thank you, PR training!
On a separate note, Kate had made a lot of different promises to me in the last couple of weeks, all of which she has broken. There is one last promise that she swore she would keep. I’m keeping up my end of it, but she’s made it clear that she’s already broken it. I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt, but given her track record, I don’t have high hopes. Oh well. If she’s even still out there, maybe she’ll check in. After all, she is my best friend! I was so thankful at the possibility that we could return to that.