Feelings of failure brought home
Jun. 29th, 2003 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
urocyonWhen I was out yesterday, I saw somebody who strongly reminded me of a guy I used to know (it may well have been he, as it turns out). This made me wonder, as occasionally happens, what the guy in question has been up to; it's been years since I've seen him. We were never particularly good friends, but friendly enough--we transferred into the same high school at about the same time and had a number of classes together, and he also ended up at Virginia Tech afterward. He's one of the people I suspect might have been an actual friend rather than a pleasant acquaintance, had I not been so bashful at the time. (I may cover it pretty well most of the time, but I'm still rather shy--particular fun for a basic extrovert.)
So, through the magic of Google, I not only located his website with e-mail address (saying hello can be good), but found out that he's still in the area. Up to this point, fairly routine stuff. Looking through what was available, though, I managed to appall myself.
I think I've done a lot of work on it, and am kinder to myself than I used to be, but a tremendous wave of feeling like an absolute failure came over me. A veritable tsunami compared to what I've been accustomed to fighting. The contrast there really struck me, and I didn't handle it at all well, for some reason. I'd been upset earlier last night, and I think I'm in a rather mild version of one of my summer depressions, but still...
A better idea of what set off my overreaction can be gleaned from this page, particularly from the resume linked therein.
Presumably, the contrast in our current situations struck me particularly strongly because not only did I have a reasonable expectation of my life following a similar pattern, but because it did so (with regard to "accomplishments") before circumstances intervened, The main difference in our educational patterns, before I crashed and burned in my third year at Virginia Tech, was that he did half a day at the Governor's School for science, math, and technology attached to our HS campus. I was immediately offered a spot when I looked into transferring, but found the idea less than appealing at the time, particularly since I'd had to repeat Algebra I and was about to repeat Biology. (Of course, the ones offering had my records in front of them; surely they wouldn't have offered had they thought it would pose a problem.) At any rate, we performed about equally well undergrad at Tech, while I was still there.
This just impressed me as a fine example of how far I seem to have gotten off track. And it really hurt.
No matter how hard I try not to beat myself up, occasionally I do feel like a failure, and lazy to boot. No, things don't always go as planned, and I tell myself that trying to be as happy as possible is about the most important thing. But sometimes I see things like this and become upset--not just due to thoughts of failure, but because I disappoint myself. Sometimes I fall into some self-pity, despite myself, and mourn what I've missed through circumstances largely beyond my control. There is certainly still plenty of time to do whatever I like, and I recognise that it's a bit silly to castigate myself on occasion for not having accumulated degrees, and not yet having been able to regain some physical independence. It's also anything but useful to become upset about being not quite so swift as I was before the intercranial swelling, as if anyone else seems to notice it as much as I do.
Nothing seems much truer than the old saw about our being our own worst critics, though I seem to take it to an extreme at times. *g*
Sorry if this makes little sense/sounds silly, but I did need to vent. Sometimes my reactions surprise even me.
So, through the magic of Google, I not only located his website with e-mail address (saying hello can be good), but found out that he's still in the area. Up to this point, fairly routine stuff. Looking through what was available, though, I managed to appall myself.
I think I've done a lot of work on it, and am kinder to myself than I used to be, but a tremendous wave of feeling like an absolute failure came over me. A veritable tsunami compared to what I've been accustomed to fighting. The contrast there really struck me, and I didn't handle it at all well, for some reason. I'd been upset earlier last night, and I think I'm in a rather mild version of one of my summer depressions, but still...
A better idea of what set off my overreaction can be gleaned from this page, particularly from the resume linked therein.
Presumably, the contrast in our current situations struck me particularly strongly because not only did I have a reasonable expectation of my life following a similar pattern, but because it did so (with regard to "accomplishments") before circumstances intervened, The main difference in our educational patterns, before I crashed and burned in my third year at Virginia Tech, was that he did half a day at the Governor's School for science, math, and technology attached to our HS campus. I was immediately offered a spot when I looked into transferring, but found the idea less than appealing at the time, particularly since I'd had to repeat Algebra I and was about to repeat Biology. (Of course, the ones offering had my records in front of them; surely they wouldn't have offered had they thought it would pose a problem.) At any rate, we performed about equally well undergrad at Tech, while I was still there.
This just impressed me as a fine example of how far I seem to have gotten off track. And it really hurt.
No matter how hard I try not to beat myself up, occasionally I do feel like a failure, and lazy to boot. No, things don't always go as planned, and I tell myself that trying to be as happy as possible is about the most important thing. But sometimes I see things like this and become upset--not just due to thoughts of failure, but because I disappoint myself. Sometimes I fall into some self-pity, despite myself, and mourn what I've missed through circumstances largely beyond my control. There is certainly still plenty of time to do whatever I like, and I recognise that it's a bit silly to castigate myself on occasion for not having accumulated degrees, and not yet having been able to regain some physical independence. It's also anything but useful to become upset about being not quite so swift as I was before the intercranial swelling, as if anyone else seems to notice it as much as I do.
Nothing seems much truer than the old saw about our being our own worst critics, though I seem to take it to an extreme at times. *g*
Sorry if this makes little sense/sounds silly, but I did need to vent. Sometimes my reactions surprise even me.
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-29 03:41 pm (UTC)Speaking of old friends, at the museum today I saw:
*One girl I went to junior high school with who now appears (didn't have a chance to talk to her) to be a sailor
*Another girl from high school who turned out, on closer inspection, to be someone I had never seen before in my entire life. Later, after thinking that it might have been her after all, I realized that, nope.
*A girl I knew jogged past and I was going to wolf-whistle and wave at her, and realized at the last possible moment that I didn't know her at all, and quickly turned the whistle into the march Sønner Av Norge.