I could probably title this post "Confessions of a dangerous mind", but at the moment it's in the teens outside, with snow having fallen just about every other day for the past week, so I'll just stick with what you see above.
If your above the age of 16, you may want to sit back and reflect on these questions:
"Who do I seem to live my life like?"
"What events have impacted how I see the world?"
And the most dangerous question of all..... "Why are things the way they are?"
A recurring spat of bitterness led me to these questions about my own life, and if the following reflection helps you in any way figure out something about your life, then thank the Lord, not me.
I can pinpoint the day I became an angry man. The date is irrelevant, but the events are far from that. Sophomore year of college is typically a year when after getting your feet wet the year before you start to dive in and see how far you can go, and thus set your sights accordingly. I had been a very involved resident in my dorm, which conveniently was attached to the campus Newman center, where I was also involved in a lot of different activities. I was also maintaining my usually high GPA (not a 4.0, but still good), and I had my sights set on 1 simple role: Resident Advisor. When it came time to apply, I knew that the going would be tough, as there were others, many whom I had befriended, who also made good candidates. There was also a dearth of available positions, as only 2 would even be brought on as RAs. unlike the 5 of the prior year. I realized I wasn't a shoe in for one of the open slots, but figured with my record that I'd at least receive an interview.
Sophomoric folly #1: Assume something will happen and have no thought about the alternative result.
The interview list gets posted, and I'm overlooked without an interview. Worse, I see a name of someone who I know won't make a good RA, but happened to be good friends with one of the current female RAs, and wonder how on Earth he was chosen over me. I'm pretty sure people could see the steam spewing out my ears when I was in this rage. It was bad enough I even bitched about it to one of the RAs that it was ridiculous. My rationalizing of events to try and soothe things didn't do much either. Passed over because of RAs trying to help friends when recommending candidates to the hall director. Directors keeping me out and trying to trap me into a box that I may not want to be in. Someone thinking I would overextend myself with all I was involved in. Nothing I came up with could ease the pain, as it was all conjecture with no solid evidence. My thoughts over how my college life would go suddenly vanished. I became an insecure 19-year-old who had to figure out what next.
Sophomoric folly #2: Carry emotional baggage around and try to ignore it.
This was something I should have learned already. It took me 3 years to fully grieve after my grandmother died, though part of that was the whole trying-to-be-a-macho-man-at-15 thing. Still, it was a lesson I learned, but insanely repeated in this case. The semester was capped off with my tanking on a linear algebra final after having things come pretty easy for most of the course. The next semester I land myself on academic probation. To top it off, my search for someone to open up to became a rebellion against an attempt to back away from the dating scene for the year, which then lead to my realizing I missed out on one girl who was really interested in my quirky self. Talk about a harsh wake up call that you're human and flawed.
Sophomoric folly #3: Just because time moves on doesn't mean things move away.
Earlier this month, I received a donation request from the aforementioned Newman center that actually runs the dorm too. It was the first contact I had received from the dorm since I graduated, found a job and moved out on my own. And I was pissed that it took them this long to finally send me something in the mail. Now, they also have this newsletter, which I never received a copy of, so that's a part of it. But the bulk of it was the feeling that I poured myself into that place for 4 years, not only as a resident, but as someone who was involved in all aspects of the Newman center to some degree, and never received a whole lot of recognition for it. Sure, I led the Knights council, but I was never rewarded with the leadership positions elsewhere that I thought I could handle. The RA ordeal was the just first of the perceived slights from there. Each slight left a chip on the shoulder, and while they're easy to ignore since I'm hundreds of miles away, they've refused to go away.
In one of my interviews, I was chided for asking for more money from the employer who ultimately hired me. I was told I was part of this "Generation of entitlement", where one thinks if he/she does x, y, and z, then the equation will lead to whatever it is he/she wants. He/she realizes that x, y, and z are variables that have a number of possibilities, but feel as if those actions in general have merited something that may not have necessarily been earned merely by those efforts. It's like being a pitcher who throws what appears to be a flawless sequence of pitches to a batter that has him struggling, only to watch that final pitch of the at bat be one that will most likely result in a strikeout, only to watch the ball get smoked for a home run. What's a pitcher to do? Learn from the previous misstep, grab the baseball and make pitches to the next batter to get him out.
So what do I need to remember about myself that in my pressing to prove something I cannot I have forgotten? That leaders first start as good soldiers. That you can't always get what you want, but you might just find what you need. That trying to prove something in the past only means you're missing out on trying to prove what you can do today.
Carpe diem. New batter. Time to pitch.
12 years ago
