Last ditch procrastination effort. <\/p>\n
So, after my interview with the GAO, and subsequently beating myself up, I came to an important realization that I number of you probably think is so overwhelmingly obvious, I might as well talk about the color of grass. I’m pretty clear that a number of people have identified it as my most annoying trait, and I’m starting to see how it regularly fucks me up. My first thought on this was “chip on my shoulder”, but I rapidly came to the conclusion “something to prove” was more accurate. Much later I realized that I have _everything_ to prove. <\/p>\n
It’s this tremendous pressure in my head. I have to prove I’m smart, that I know what’s going on and not provide misinformation. I’ve been told I can do anything, so I have to do something great. Something worthy of the potential that every freaking teacher from 1st grade on has assured my parents that I have (until college, anyway ;). That my parents were probably assuring me I had even before that. I have to show that I’m neither a flake nor mean. That I can cut it in ‘the real world’, and won’t be dependent on outside assistance, be it from my parents or whomever. I have to demonstrate that I’m not every negative adjective that I’ve ever heard anyone use to describe me (and, really, I can’t say I’ve heard that many since becoming an adult). Someone who does no harm. Someone who takes nothing, who needs nothing. Someone who makes the world a better place. Sure, lots of people have these or similar pressures. Not everyone lets it drive them to attend top schools and max out on the units, and hold down a quarter time job, and skip a stats class to take the most advanced one offered in the program. In short, not everyone lets it drive them past their limits.<\/p>\n
I have to stay under control and never freak out. (Discounting a twice lost temper, and three times I couldn’t keep from crying my eyes out, I’ve done pretty well on that one for the past 10 years.) Two of those crying jags were over self-identified academic failures, by the way. Both of the well and truly lost temper experiences were in the presence of Despair when I fail to live up to these expectations. The thrill of being back in the game when I manage an impressive accomplishment, an unexpected recovery, whatevr. Makes for a pretty bipolar life. <\/p>\n How the GAO fits in is pretty obvious to me. It’s a respected organization, it does good work (even if it often plays Cassandra). An internship there would be a clear sign of my ‘worthiness’ (for about a week). Then, once I got in, true to form, I’d be asking myself what I was doing there. Babbling in the interview about past difficulties writing, and recounting my failures to perform, and my progress towards capability was just another way of confessing to my sins in hopes of forgiveness, and asking them to confirm that I am worthy. I tried to recruit them for my script.<\/p>\n I have a vision of myself in the future, and have had it for a long time. It’s an oddly simple idea. Gardening outside my house in the country, content with myself. I don’t know how I got the self-contentment wrapped up in that image, but there it is, nonetheless. Nothing to prove. Self-acceptance. <\/p>\n The journey from here to there is a mystery. Some of my decisions are clearly problematic. My courseload this semester for instance. But at the same time, I still think policy school was a good decision for me. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my imperatives… as goals, not imperatives. <\/p>\n What to do about it is a post for another time, I should be getting to work. =)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last ditch procrastination effort. So, after my interview with the GAO, and subsequently beating myself up, I came to an important realization that I number of you probably think is so overwhelmingly obvious, I might as well talk about the color of grass. I’m pretty clear that a number of people have identified it as … Continue reading “Something to prove”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cheerfulchaotic.crazycrew.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}