Let Me Ride

Sometimes I wonder whether I have the patience and the stamina to get all the way through college in one piece. I find that anytime I set out to do something big I lose interest or get lazy after a little while, and the rest of it is a pained, forced slog through my own indifference for the sake of school credit. The end product is usually sub-par.

I wonder if it’s just that I’m doing the wrong things. I really like the stuff I study, for the most part, but maybe I haven’t found my academic niche yet, or my forte or something (which is maybe finicky BS, but whatever). Maybe it’s all a kind of “the grass is always greener” sort of thing, where I assume my drive is directly proportional to the excitement of the task, but in fact it’s just in my nature to be unmotivated toward whatever is on my plate at the moment. Certainly, in high school, I looked forward with a sort of reverent anticipation to the college days ahead, where I would throw myself into study with wild abandon, finally having my intelligence met by the material, being challenged in a way that was impossible in the controlled monotony of the public school system. It’s only when I look back on those dark days past that I feel fully satisfied by my current position. I don’t know if this is a common condition or if there’s something terribly wrong with me. Sometimes I feel like I’m wasting time and money, and I should just drop out, go home and get a job before I’ve thrown away the entirety of my youth in search of something that won’t ever come. But there’s that suspicion that resides always in the back of my mind, poking its head out now and again to remind me that I’m capable of greatness—that great things will come if I just persevere and push myself ahead. This feeling fills me with an even greater anxiety; I don’t know if it’s intuition or blind arrogance, or some mutant combination of the two.

At the tail end of last night’s festivities, after everyone else had left, as per my usual habit I ended up in a drunken convo with the host and we were talking about this kind of thing, our respective collegiate callings and whatnot. I wondered, aloud, whether the truth was that I was too talented (as I sometimes suspect) to be doing what I'm doing, or if I wasn't talented enough (as I often suspect) to be doing what I think I should. "It’s a very fine line," he replied.