I blame my parents and teachers.
They believed in me. They told me I was bright, special and full of potential. While they were filling my head with thoughts of grandeur, I was doing very little. I never felt like I was pushed to apply myself. Everybody around me was more than satisfied with the minimal amount work I put forth. My whole life I devoted very little effort to anything academic, yet I was still managed to rise to the top of my class. Even in my undergraduate classes, I spent little time worrying my work. I never worried about grades. Things had a way of falling into my lap. In fact, I started to push the envelope on how much I could slack before starting a project. I would get this sort of adrenaline high from completing a project just in the nick of time. I would chuckle to myself when I received my grade, "If this is the grade I got without trying, just imagine if I actually applied myself."
Now in graduate school, I find it hard to shake my bad habits. Unfortunately, people don't seem to find me nearly a brilliant as the people in my past. It's as if they want me to try harder, and I just don't know how or what they want from me. So here I am, rethinking all my life decisions.
I think the reason I never put much effort into anything is because I have this intense fear of failing. Or maybe I was never as smart as they said I was. I am fraud. I have tricked them all for the last twenty-four years, and it seems as though the jig is up. My luck has run out.
I have never quit anything. I have never failed anything. I will find a way to make things better. I am sure that smart young woman is still somewhere inside buried beneath layers of idleness and sloth. I just need to figure out a way to coax her out and teach her how to work. I need to figure out how to do this soon.
