have you squandered your potential?

Hockey: I was really good but I stopped growing in height at like BANTAM so I kinda gave up on that. I play pick-up nowadays but I feel like shit.

Skiing: Was semi-pro for freestyle shit but I burned out/went to uni. right when all the kids I used to beat in comps all the time got into the new wave X-games shit and kept going and now they're famous and on the X-Games and I still smoke cigs on the chairlift but I'm still usually the best skiier there if I hit up a local mtn instead of Whislter/Blackcomb. I ain't shit up against the SuperPark kids there, which is kinda depressing.

Romantic: follow my name for a picture of me. I'm not great looking, nor am I the easiest person to get on with in some ways, and I'm pretty demanding. I was married to an extraordinary and beautiful woman for 23 years, and after all that monogamy, well, my sexual life since then has already been talked about too much here, but it's been beyond all but my wildest dreams. I'd say I've exceeded my potential by a long way here.

Artistic: I don't think I have much artistic talent at all. I long ago decided that a perhaps secondary role was all I was good for there. I was at one time arguably Britain's leading comic critic (ha, talk about a biggish minnow in a tiny puddle), and I worked with several of the greatest British talents in comics in recent years (Moore, Morrison, Gaiman, Millar, Campbell...). I now write alongside some people who I think are genuine world class writers, for Freaky Trigger. I think I've done as much as my meagre talents would allow in this area, probably rather more than I would have expected.

Sport: I was a small and pretty puny kid with exceptionally bad asthma, but I loved sport, and made the school football team, and was table tennis and tennis champion. I seemed to be the best at the last named in the first year at Cambridge, and I think I'd have probably got my blue (US: award for playing in the equivalent of Harvard-Yale or some such) had I stayed there long enough. With my very poor health I can't imagine I could have taken any of that to a much higher level, so not squandered, but I have let most of what fitness and ability I did have go. I did bowl a 160 today, which isn't bad for I think my eighth ever frame or whatever you call them.

I've no idea what that amounts to. I guess with my intelligence I could have maybe become a genuine expert in something, or turned it into a lot more money, but that would have required a different personality, and I'm happy enough with where I am. The rest I think I score pretty well on.

A prof + PhD student said that I was destined for grad school because I read Ulysses three times, and in a way I took that to heart (more like, I didn't try very hard finding a job so I went with what I knew: school). I saw myself as a professor. But now I'm 80-90% sure that I want to no more to do with academics and try to find some editing/journalism/writing gig, which is still hard for me to reconcile with the fact that I still think that the peak of intellectual thought and discourse is accomplished in a doctoral program.

squandered potential

210!!! Is that metric or hogsheads or some other british unit??? yoo r a supergenius!!! i will have to pay more attention to yer posts from now on.

And yet, I am strangely happy and contented right now. I can only presume this is preceding some gigantic crisis at the age of 30.

But yes, other than specifically in that respect I have squandered all of my OTHER potential. Probably so.

I do feel that in an artistic and professional sense I am kind of selling myself short, but part of this is not really knowing what it is I ought to be doing. In the meantime I earn a reasonable income and live a pleasant lifestyle.

Usual units. I take it as evidence of the very severe limitations of IQ as a measure. It is a test that suits my abilities very well, but provides no evidence of anything that a reasonable person could call genius.

My 8-ball and 9-ball skills have declined dramatically since college ended.

Also, I don't understand my college honor's thesis anymore. I'm not sure if I was full of crap or just got dumber. Probably both.

I don't feel potential as something wonderful or pleasant, I feel it like some crushing onerous weight which makes me unable to even stand up sometimes.

The idea that someone with stacks of qualifications *should* be sombody important earning shitloads is nonsense. What if they don't WANT to.

I should have had a book out by now but the lady who was dealing with me at the publishers has left and no one else there knows who or why I am. After the terrible critical roasting that the Belle de Jour blog book got no one's going to touch blog books with a bargepole. The freelance reviewing has ground to a complete halt. So I'm just continuing to systematically cut myself off from the few people out there still remotely sympathetic to me. Bite and snarl at anyone who dares to come near me. And I'm probably enjoying it deep down; why else would I do it? No one else to blame; I asked for this time and time again; dozens of chances have come my way and I rebuffed every one of them. I suppose one ends up with the squandered life that one deserves, and perhaps even craves. Takes the pressure of "potential" off.

Academic : Seen in terms of raw qualifications, I would be seen as an over-acheiver by most people. Yet look beneath the surface and the grades are always the minimum needed to get to the next stage. Not that it matters now, since I always did get to the next stage, but I do regret not making more of an effort just to see how good I was, rather breezing through on autopilot. So i'd say : squandered.

Romantic : Oh god. Not squandered, despite my idiotic approach over the years. The lovely Mr.s Dr. C is more than I could have ever hoped for.

Artistic : I've wasted years farting around with hopeless bands before finally getting in a decent one. : Squandered.

Sport : I have been pretty good at virtually every sport I have tried. I could probably have gone further with a couple of them (rugby, cricket) but stayed in my comfort zone instead. Given that I'm still playing and will play until I drop, I'd say : Not Squandered.

Professional : I earn pretty good money doing something I don't have the remotest interest in. If I was so inclined I could easily climb up to the higher levels of corporate life. I know what you have to do, I know what you have to say, etc etc. But I'd rather have all four limbs removed, not through any real sense of pride at NOT doing it, but because it would take up too much time. Time best spent having fun!

"Time best spent having fun!" though - that's my trouble, you see; I can't stop working. Even when I'm doing the blog it feels like "work" ("yes and it's hard bloody work reading it and all!" - readers' chorus).

this is what the internet was invented for.......

I wouldn't be too hard on yourself about this Marcello, I don't know a single freelancer (however talented) who isn't struggling right now.

I agree with Martin (despite the fact that he is clearly very smart). I can barely understand the instructions to many IQ tests, never mind the tests themselves, yet I'm a pretty smart person.

I spend all my time thinking up these great ideas and then can't be arsed to put any of them into practice. My main goal in life is to work as few hours as possible and yet somehow maintain an almost middle-class lifestyle. But I know that whenever I apply myself to a job, I always get promoted and handed extra responsibilities and am great.

The only area of my life where I think I'm doing exactly as well as I possibly can is in my writing. I'm a middling (and still unpublished) writer with middling ideas, and I reckon that sounds about right.

That said, I do spend time reflecting on the fact that every job I've ever held began with me being heralded as the new messiah and ended with an involuntary "exit interview."

Hahahahahahahahahaha

artistic: well I don't know how much potential I have, I think I have fulfilled a certain amount of it, but if you remove actually working and trying and pushing myself from artistic ability then it kind of counts for alot less. this year I have made a resolution to do at least one thing to further my career and get more writing work a day.

romantic: complete washout. again I don't know how to gauge potential but I assume for the sake of it that someone who has friends and interests has some romantic potential. my entire teenage years went by without any significant romantic relationship, my 20s too. I don't mind so much, I went to an all boys school and spent most of college in clubs which isn't exactly a good place to meet people. Having said that I am sure I'll never be able to watch television realisations of teenage relationships and "first love" type stuff without feeling a little deflated.

To summarise, I have ambition but I'm also lazy, the lazy side frequently wins out over the ambitious side. I don't know if college breeds laziness, or where things go wrong after being top of the class and a marvel etc in primary school, as I'm sure loads of us here and lots of my friends were.

I sometimes think the cause of my laziness is a sort of spoiling, caused by seeing how many untalented unscrupulous people succeed so spectacularly. I am really trying to leave these thoughts somewhere though, for the sake of succeeding myself.

Join the club Anna, nice to have you on board!

Consequently when the time came to apply for Oxford and I had to pick a college, I went for Lady Margaret Hall largely because it had just gone co-ed and was still 80% populated by the opposite sex. I was very open about this at my interview. I was trying to make up for lost time.

Maybe not, but trying to fill L. Ron Hubbard's shoes over at the Church of Scientology was what really did me in.

But potential spring eternal. Perhaps I'll audition to be the new lead singer of INXS.

At the age of 31 with stuff that's going on in my life right now and certain frames of mind alterations, lot's of fresh ideas for projects, I can't help but feel I'm starting all over again. In a good way.

I believe I've not really 'squandered' my potential, merely put it on the back boiler for a while. Now it's matured slightly I feel confident to work hard with it.

Me = big speccy rugby nerd.

I still can't decide whether having 4 sisters helped or hindered me with girls. Taking sides : Plenty of opportunities to meet sisters' friends v potential gf being frightened off by having to pass 'the sister test'.

Romantic potential is difficult. It seems almost impossible to assess what my potential is or might have been. All I know is that I spent most of the first eleven years of my sexually active life in one relationship or another and most of the last three single. I'm beginning to not cope very well with this and worry that the current state of affairs better reflects my true potential. Bah.

Admittedly my friends from (all boys) school didn't have girlfriends, and many still don't. I think this is probably more to do with a more male circle of friends than actually direct personal effects of single sex education.

This is pretty much me, too. Top of the class &c lasted until the end of school actually, but the top marks weren't accompanied by any sort of work ethic/motivation skills because it was so easy to coast, so my academic potential pretty much died on its arse at university. I think it's been so long since I bothered using my brain in that way that all that potential has actually gone for good.

I'm on the brink of squandering my professional potential now, though it isn't helped by my not knowing what kind of professional potential I actually have. I mean, I'm probably slightly ahead of my contemporaries in this respect but it requires so much work to keep this up, and as well as aforementioned laziness kicking in I'm not even sure if this is what I really want to be doing.

I find the concept of 'romantic potential' quite strange.

If you're multifaceted and not monomaniacal about a field of endeavor, it's hard to choose what you SHOULD be doing (whatever the fuck that means).

That said, I'm planning on being a late bloomer.

remember, as larkin tell us, even an ambition achieved is merely a stumble into 'fulfilment's desolate attic'

(xpost re: romantic potential)

gret book! also see: Exley's A Fan's Notes.

So, obviously, I have failed to fulfill my romantic potential. But I guess I'm OK with that right now.

1) you lot are extremely talented on paper but i only really ever see you in situations where this is not really relevant i.e. going to the pub, drinking, trivial banter, dancing to music. i would very much like to be able to 'spy' on many of you at your places of work.

2) in my immediate circle of friends it seems there isn't really anybody with burning ambitions to do something important or major artistically or politically. i think i do have this ambition tho it has not been demonstrated anywhere near enough by me to anyone. so why don't i have more friends with the same sort of ambition and 'potential' (read skills and talents)? i can think of some reasons but none anymore convincing than 'that's just the way it is right now'. feh.

Some tests (e.g.BBC's Test the Nation) I find almost physically painful to endure, forcing my brain to think in a way it really doesn't want to. No more turning geometric shapes around in my mind!

A more important question to me is 'Do I find my life interesting?' rather than 'Have I fulfilled my potential?'

That's an even *more* depressing question.

I don't count as squandered any apparent potential before high school, because I don't think you can accurately predict that. I think part of the problem with children's "potential" is that most kids can do anything, or nothing, and anyone who does something gets told they're sooo special and they're going to stand out. So that only leaves like five years of possible squandering for me.

Romantic: um, if "potential" means being really attractive in some way, or something, don't think i had any potential.

Artistic: I've got no potential to squander, and I'm in the horrible position of trying to do something WITHOUT potential (i.e., just join a stupid choir). It's really hard to do when you stink.

Academic: hahahaha! too young to have squandered it! also, i think i do work to the most of my potential, i'm just in a pond where i'm not a big fish anymore. and i do enjoy my classes.

Also, I never thought I would get *this* good at video games.

artistic - I've tried a lot of things, had some minor successes. It's whether you enjoy the process or not that counts. I'm pretty sure I'll make it at something, probably everything.

romantic - hahaha. Times infinity.

professionally - I don't particularly care.

otherwise - I'm not completely cynical yet.

Is my life interesting? To me, it's okay.

You'll never improve at that rate.

anthony, you gotta understand that failure isn't a defining moment in your life (unless you let it be). Nobody gets away without failures. They are a natural prelude to success. Think of it in engineering terms. You turn out prototypes. They fail, so you turn out more. When one doesn't fail, it isn't a prototype anymore. Success! (Whatever that word means to you.)

BTW, thanks Maria.

Partway through college, I got interested in art and literature and started taking it seriously; for a while I thought I was destined to be a scholar or creative-type writer of some sort. Published a bit, cultivated the tweedy professorial look, bla bla y bla. Prepared for graduate school and a life in the ivory tower.

I don't regret that I changed my mind--basically, I fell back in love with the world. Plus, when I realized I could get a writing job without jumping through the graduate school, the sense that Academia was the only fit place for me diminished rapidly.

Professionally, I'm continually surprised at my good fortune. I never expected to be able to do the things I do for the salary I make.

Romantically, no complaints. I had a good run at promiscuity, checked a lot of things off the mental to-do-list and said "been there, done that." Now, I'm having a good run at being married. In no goddamn hurry to buy a house or have children.

Artistically? I could be a better musician if I learned to read music, studied chordal theory, practiced more, joined a less half-assed band, etc. I could draw and paint better if I took some classes. I could write more personal stuff (reviews, essays, stories, poems) if I worked at it. But I'd vastly rather be a dilettante who does a little bit of a bunch of things, instead of being a virtuoso at any one of them.

In this and a lot of things, I don't think I'm living up to my potential, but I also don't care. I think my final answer is that you can only expend so much time/energy on living up to your potential. The amount of time/energy you have is, ultimately, finite. Work on area X means taking resources away from area Y. Since I'm very attached to what's happened in area Y, I'm reluctant to ever say that I ought to have done more X.

I think a lot of people, not specific people just generally in my experience, never really go out of their way to fix these things cos they're already convinced they missed the boat or fucked up big time so why bother, but I think that statement is very rarely actually true.

In most other aspects I feel like things are still constantly improving: I know lots of interesting, funny, intelligent, creative people who also seem to find things in me to appreciate, I'm just at the beginning of a little potential artistic success which, even if it comes to nothing (which is by far the most likely outcome), will still be immensely enjoyable and I have far more confidence in myself than I could ever have imagined in my teens.

But I haven't done ANYTHING of note yet, so perhaps I have not fulfilled my potential. In fact, I could quite happily admit to being an utter failure so far in many ways. However, I have surpassed my own expectations in so many other, more important ways that this seems to pale into shadows.

(nb: this is a joke, btw)

yes, I've suspected this is the case for a while, but how in hell do you find out what your 'potential' actually IS? I mean, is it what I am possibly in the process of squandering or not? I've no idea, which is rather lame in itself.

Well, it has been 7 years since this thread was revived. Is that enough time to decide whether or not our potential has been squandered?
Can a person squander potential that s/he never thought was there in the first place?

I re-read my reply to the OP and imo it is otm, even though I'm not supposed to otm myself.

Yeah, I tend to agree! I tend to think, however delusionally, that genius could emerge from anyone at any time. There is no "squandered" until we're dead.

The squandering of potential sometimes seems to be the running theme of my adult life.

You're going to be an adult for a really long time. Are you sure you want to keep this as your running theme?

definitely times where I think I've squandered a lot of professional potentials, but i also think that realizing a lot of those potentials would've made me a much unhappier person overall. if that makes sense.

Makes perfect sense to me. Just because you could do something is no reason why you should do it.

i have seen the moment of my greatness flicker

i also think that realizing a lot of those potentials would've made me a much unhappier person overall. if that makes sense.
Totally makes sense. I value sustained happiness over "success" 99% of the time.

You're going to be an adult for a really long time. Are you sure you want to keep this as your running theme?

Well, no, I never wanted it to be a running theme in the first place. It just always appears that way in hindsight. I always (stupidly, perhaps) maintain optimism that it will become less so.

my parents probably think that I have squandered many metric tons of potential, but w/e. i'm mostly ok with that but today for some reason i had a fleeting feeling like i had passed my expiration date. it passed.

Past expiration? Nah. Too much has been made of her, but it is still worth glancing at Grandma Moses.

it = the feeling, not the expiration date!

I don't know what my potential was or is. I test really, really well, but I was a stubborn and hostile student in high school, never went to college full time and still really only have half a degree at 30. It sounds like humble-bragging I guess, but I've always been pretty good at whatever interested me but never great. Whether that's through lack of talent or dedication, god only knows.

'The nice thing about "squandered potential" is that what passes for achievement is so frequently empty when not downright evil.'

this is probably not what morbius meant, but I really felt like this music review website long ago some buddies started could have been what pitchfork became.

I don't know what my potential was or is.
I mean, does anyone? This is why I think asking oneself if potential has been "squandered" is a pointless question. Might as well just carry on and move forward and do things. Maybe something will be great. Maybe it won't. Getting hung up on that is a waste of time and energy, I think.

i feel like i'm wringing everything i can out of a very, very small amount of potential

I haven't squandered all of my potential, just 98% of it.

This is such a strange topic, and one that I've been thinking about quite a lot recently (sitting in my Esther Greenwood tree crotch trying to figure out what fig to eat next) due mostly to being unemployed.

It's very easy to feel like I've squandered my potential, but when I think back to the potential that I could have spent the rest of my life in a mental hospital or put my head in an oven at some stupid stage - wow, those are potentials I'm really quite happy to have squandered! My life has been so much more than some people ever thought it would be!

Every now and then someone (usually my mother) tries to tell me that I've squandered my potential because I'm not a successful artist by their scale (but successful to me means that I've drawn a picture I like!) Or tells me that I should write Proper Books which get published instead of trashy shit that gets serialised on fan fiction sites - but that is what is *fun* and pleases me and I enjoy it! I'm slightly disappointed in my failure to turn music into an ongoing career, but I feel like I went so much further than most people I knew, I accomplished every goal I set out to do, so why should I feel squandered about that?

The professional thing, I have learned this lesson: that there can come a point where, in *not* squandering your potential, that you can gain the world and lose your soul. This will make you unhappy on a level that is seriously not worth it at all.

Romantic potential - utterly, totally squandered, wasted, blown to shit. That my few years of vague attractiveness and reproductive availability I wasted throwing what little pearls I had at swine. That's gone, over, never coming back and if anyone tries to tell me otherwise to "try to cheer me up" or whatever, I will punch them in the nose. That the thing I chased hardest and desired most, I never really got to do - to love and be loved. And that is the thing that still, makes me feel the worst, even in the face of all the ostensible successes above.

cheer up everyone, you'll all be dead soon and then you won't have any potential to squander

my train of logic always ends up there

I guess I have wasted my potential in that I haven't invented a cure for dying yet

I would also like more money

I think my potential has been consistently compromised by things like putting my heart before my head, a rabid hatred of injustice, a distaste for competition, a seeming inability to refrain from speaking my mind, intolerance towards willful ignorance, a strong belief in meritocracy, a seeming inability to engage in b.s. asskissery, putting more emphasis on personal satisfaction than on money or material goods, etc., etc. All values which I gladly cling to but which largely deny the eeality of what our society has evolved into. Independent of any tendency towards functioning highly in a vacuum, those other qualities always seem to be the determining factors with respect to the ultimate fulfillment (or general lack thereof) of my potential. I don't think it's a thing that'll necessarily perpetuate itself indefinitely, but I think it's gonna require me finding a place in the world where my stupid emotion-driven idealism isn't an active detriment to my success.

hm maybe the problem is you?

Deric, to paraphrase Rumsfeld, you go to war with the society you live in, not the society you wish you had.

worrying about shit like this is a sure way to be totally unhappy

yeah i'm going to step back before i spend the whole afternoon trolling this thread but i gotta say that the idea of "potential" as this non-renewable resource that's slowly dwindling as you get older is just nuts

I don't apply myself in any meaningful way to most things and I'm a procrastinator!

"squandered" sounds like guilt-baiting and I'm not playing that game. I get to keep me for me, damn it.

Well, I should point out that I'm well-aware of how the world actually functions and also that the problem is mine. Didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It just seems that this shit is pretty well ingrained at this point, so I think I'm gonna be more well-served by finding a niche where it doesn't work against me than by actively and, ultimately, futilely trying to overcome it.

Don't think about overcoming, think of sidestepping. My 2012 goal is to make new habits that enable productivity in a stealthy manner without dropping my existing ability to shirk work I don't want to do

Romantic potential - utterly, totally squandered, wasted, blown to shit. That my few years of vague attractiveness and reproductive availability I wasted throwing what little pearls I had at swine. That's gone, over, never coming back and if anyone tries to tell me otherwise to "try to cheer me up" or whatever, I will punch them in the nose. That the thing I chased hardest and desired most, I never really got to do - to love and be loved. And that is the thing that still, makes me feel the worst, even in the face of all the ostensible successes above.

Yeah I pretty much feel this as well. It's probably quite common if you're single in your 40s. And yet I can't blame myself - I'm just not made for coupledom. I never felt comfortable with it.

I'm hoping that when I'm a mad pensioner singleton with lots of interests and time to pursue them I'll feel things turned out for the best. I've just got to avoid being too ground down and embittered by life before then.

I think that potential can be defined, to an extent, as one's level of perseverance. By that definition, it's definitely a renewable resource.

Yeah, that's pretty much where my head's at, mh.

^^ now you're talking (xpost)

not just perseverance, but also openness to change?

I dunno, it seems kind of purposely oblivious to ignore the fact that, for many things, there is an actual age limit on doing them? Which may vary for different people and different things (someone always posts a Grandma Moses link) but the fact is, that choosing one option shuts off, permanently, other options and potentials. I get that age and time may offer the possibility of *different* potentials opening up. But don't be disingenuous and say that potential is endlessly renewable, because it's just not.

age limit on what? you know there is a VD epidemic in california nursing homes?

like "inability to refrain from speaking your mind" = it seems like your perception of your "potential" depends on how "unable" you perceive yourself to be in this capacity?

not just perseverance, but also openness to change?
otm

xpost to KSC: i mean yeah, we've probably all squandered our potential as world-class athletes ... except in endurance running, where you can peak in your 40s?

I kinda think that the most important sort of potential is deeper than any of those categories and has something to do with the state of the soul - call it 'ethical potential.' I'd also say that this potential can't be squandered. But it's a hard thing to put into words and not sound like mush.

my advisor for my masters got her PhD when she was 50, my coworker who does century bike rides started riding when she was 40, etc etc

And my grandmother got her last PhD at 72! That does not mean my eggs haven't rotted in their ovaries, y'know?

the sorts of things that have youth-related time windows are mostly stupid, though, which the aging cast of Jackass are no doubt feeling in their bones. though not gonna lie; wish i'd taken up skateboarding instead of tennis.

Men can handwave about the waning of fertility with claims that, well, you know I never really felt the need to play sports with my kids, I can have them later, whatever.

But really, those swimmers are just getting slower and you're going to end up with a cranky kid, amirite

i dunno, i've been trying to be happier and really embracing mindfulness meditation and it's helping a lot and this thread just seems anathema to me wrt to the "being" vs. "doing" mind shit we've been on

for the record, i didn't revive this to get people to announce the various ways in which they had given up. it was more "wow, i had a fleeting thought about this and quickly dismissed it" and i wondered what ilx had to say.
thinking about whether or not you've lost your ability to do something is a surefire way to feel like shit, and i don't generally make a practice of intentionally making myself feel like shit.

myself or others, for that matter

yeah sorry about your rotten eggs i don't know what to say to that one

:-(

except, let's face it, most kids today are assholes

worrying about shit like this is a sure way to be totally unhappy

nah it can totally be a great motivator too; if i hadn't been concerned about "my potential", whatever it may be, over the past decade, i definitely wouldn't be happier for it at this point.

some people can do the grand life plan and focused ambition thing, that's never quite been me, but discovering what your potential actually is (in all sorts of ways) is a day-to-day thing and is a pretty enjoyable process in and of itself. i'm sure i've managed to squander some potential along the way, as have most people, through laziness or absent-mindedness or stupidity, but i have no intention of ending up on the wrong side of the ledger in that regard.

when you've got people around you with tons of potential (whether still latent or in the process of being fulfilled or already accomplished), that's tremendously inspiring too, kind of like "well if they can do this thing that i'd never thought of doing myself, why can't i go for it too?"

but when I think back to the potential that I could have spent the rest of my life in a mental hospital or put my head in an oven at some stupid stage - wow, those are potentials I'm really quite happy to have squandered!

this is also a good way of looking at it that i hadn't thought of before. everyone has -ve potential as well as +ve potential and i'm always aware that i've avoided a fair few banana skins in my life.

fwiw WCC i always think of you as one of the people i know who's fulfilled a hell of a lot of potential - you've done so much in so many areas.

the late great and dave coolier otm. "potential" is a terrible concept imo.

sometimes i think the whole fertility thing is the ultimate example of male privilege. if i was female (and wanted kids), and 3 years older, i'd be terrified of that right now.

"discovering your potential" is a great antidote to worrying about "losing" the potential that you thought you had.

like my parents always tried to sell me on the idea that i was going to become a brilliant scientist, and i finished college thinking that i'd squandered my potential. later i figured out that my real strength is on an interpersonal level (cue lazy zings) and that i'd just happened to be clever enough and my parents had given me enough confidence to be able to figure out science and math without too much stress.

so it turned out i hadn't squandered my potential, it just wasn't where i thought it was.

we all have limitless potential, the interest just isn't there

the infinity in you is the reality in you

the interest would be there if you could convince people they'd squandered it.

sad funny lol otm

Academic - did pretty well, and still engaged with a lot of what I studied, which doesn't really map onto any kind of career in any case. Unsquandered I think.

Artistic - should be doing more, but I have no idea how much if any potential was actually there in the first place. Should stretch myself to at least find out. Possibly squandering.

Romantic - is pretty great, unsquandered.

Career/earnings - I interview people who consider themselves to have fulfilled this all the time, you have no idea how many of them are harassed, overworked and unhappy. Unless you're going to be a surgeon or teacher or scientist or something that's actually important it doesn't really matter.

Of this lot, it's really only the artistic one that bothers me.

academically- no, but it's not too late

Athletically- was a wunderkind across several jumping/running disciplines but moving to an island where bogsnorkling was the best available pursuit put the kibosh on it.

Professionally - meh i'm in the public sector earning fractions of what my friends are on but it's sure and training will be available if i ever feel the need to further launch into something and i don't lose any sleep over work ever and should i ever fancy a mortgage the pension makes me a good bet.

Romantically- well i'm not a virgin anymore, so i'm prob punching above my potential tbph. I've spent several years in good relationships with great women, blessed enough tbh.

Artistically- i've never been minded to try.

is "bogsnorkling" what it sounds like?

snorkling, in a bog

Although I'm in a better place than I have been in some time, I still don't think I'm currently able to make even a passingly-objective observation about my potential after the universe spent a year demolishing almost every external signifier of my identity. I can really only think in terms of my potential for starting over from scratch. Which is high, god willin' and the creek don't rise.

and what it sounds like is 'splash, squelch, "ok i've tried it can i get out of this bog now"'

potential is overrated

OTM, frankly.

if every child on earth who is four or five years old right now took violin lessons, and kept taking them for years until they were adults (like, you know, they HAD to take them hypothetically speaking), how many world-class ready-to-solo-with-any-orchestra virtuoso violinists would you end up with when they all reached the age of 18? 20 million?

i dunno man, N. Korea probably did that on the regular and it's not like they got any olympic violin players out of it.

not that we know of...

they're all hidden in the mordor hotel

In absolutely every way, yes.

Having a job where I spend all day talking to strangers has made me less terrified of interacting with people (also in general), but now I only get to use my newfound superpower of talking to people without wanting to run away and cry to spend ten hours a day helping rude, entitled, selfish, stupid pricks with the same three or four fucking problems every day.

The academic part really hurts more than anything, though; it's been one long downhill slide from acing the SAT at 12 to failing out of three schools to spending five minutes today on the phone with a customer trying to teach a grown-ass man how to spell "zeppelin" and slowly banging my head on my desk. Jesus fucking CHRIST man there are TWO P's IT IS NOT HARD

Nothing squandered here.

you know it's been shown that a high SAT score doesn't really correlate with any "academic potential", if that makes you feel better.

people who scored well on the SAT squandered the chance to take other tests tho, and also score well on them

Trust me, I know it; I'm a complete fuckup. But I kind of hoped I could at least get my emotional shit sorted out soon enough to just go to college and not just spend almost all of my life to date too scared and ashamed of myself to leave my room or really do anything. I would have been happy failing out if I had at least had the chance to make friends and hang out and all that crap.

xpost I did do the other tests. It turns out colleges don't give a shit about those if you got kicked out of one high school for being too depressed and scared of people to leave your dorm room or, eventually, get out of bed and can't even make eye contact with the admissions guy without shaking and hyperventilating. ISSUES WHEE

http://www.dimensionsguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/Smallest-Violin.jpg

I have a lot of potential. I want to learn how to skateboard.

They have adult swimming AND adult skateboarding classes ___ for beginners ____ at the Y, so the Y believes in my potential.

i don't have nearly enough time to achieve everything i have the potential to

xp

Nah. Experiencing physical distress just from contact with people is fucking rough and a hell of a piece of bad luck, since the chances that you somehow brought this on yourself through your own choices or actions are more or less nil. So, while you won't get a dose of pity from me, acknowledgment and a certain nod of sympathy really aren't out of place.

What does adult swimming involve? sounds pretty fuckin raunchy.

xpost

I should really work on squandering, tho, such a great verb and so Dickensian. It feels bad when you look back at some prodigal period (I guess) but at least you get to say "damn I squandered that good, a ding-dang-doo." Apologies if I seem glib, here.

adult skateboarding sounds like adult pokemon but with more joint pain! we're all squandering some potential by not opening up a glucosamine stand next to the Y.

Be sure to sell glucosamine sulfate, which apparently is beneficial, and not glucosamine HCI, which studies show is pretty worthless.

I know an ilxor who might try to talk you out of skateboarding, Abbott.

??

WmC must be talking about the skateboarding ghost of ilx. he's always trying to scare people away from skateboarding.

http://images.marketworks.com/hi/58/57665/hlwn-18.jpg

i love you, skateboarding ghost!

don't eat it on that candy corn, little buddy!

skate or and die

i understand your plight, telephone thing, it's only in the last couple of years that i've become able to be sociable in any real way at all, and that's really from being thrust into situations with nice people who were happy to put up with me saying nothing while i gradually unwound somewhat. i'm still quiet and awkward and a bit weird but EY i'm getting there. what is really frustrating is that i know there's no reason for it - i am happy with the chatty and occasionally interesting and funny and clever drunk me - but in sober situations there's always that vestige of the stifling anxiety when i'm with people i'm not v v close to.

(in the nicest way possible, i blame my family - a childhood of being frail and ill and shy and having them do everything for me including answer questions people asked me doesn't seem like the best way to build basic social capacities.)

(so yeah, it would be nice to be able to meet my social potentials more and would've been nice to not have spent so much time wasting them.)

yo telephone thing college is not all that great shakes, good news is when you decide to go to college you have a natural excuse to go to community college

in every way possible, but it's too late to turn things around now.

Briefly considered doing something productive tonight, watched three hours of Sons of Anarchy instead.

that is potential well used, milo. (us potential squanderers gotta band together)

the second season IS much better than the first

I know right? exhausting.

i never had any potential

i'm too lazy too even squander. all my potential is still here, maturing & waiting to be unleashed like WKRP thanksgiving turkeys

you guys feeling bad about your own squandered potential and could use some examples to make you feel like self-actualized superstars in comparison, may I remind you of this TV show called LOST?

(p.s., if you are producers of LOST, maybe to cheer you up, think about US foreign policy post-9/11)

unless it's something biologically related like having kids, the idea that it's "too late" to fulfil your potential is such nonsense

it's always too early to fucking give up on life & what you want to make out of it

this is for them bitter-somethings
stop living in regret, baby it's not over yet

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAmnkPUFMHg

I fear awfully that although I was feeling quite light-hearted while posting yesterday, this thread may have infected me with the Sads last night and the Nothing got in and today I feel kinda blue. But that might just be the unemployment and I should go revive a Watercooler thread to bitch about it.

Professionally, I feel like I've not exactly squandered, but never really made much of my life. I've worked in sales offices since the age of 23 and pretty much been unable to escape, because it's the only vocational experience on my CV. At one time I managed to progress to a trainer's position which I loved but didn't have time to make the most of before I was made redundant and that was years ago now. Maybe a few years ago I'd have had the motivation to try and rise through the managerial ranks, but I hate the sales office culture so much now, I see my job as a means to paying the rent and that's about it.

I've never had any money either, and therefore no savings or capital to show for it. Oh, and I never learnt to drive. So basically I'd be a failure in Margaret Thatcher's eyes.

On the plus side, I'm not really a lazy person. I don't really go home and watch TV unless there's something I specifically want to see, and instead spend my evenings on other activities which have led me to:

- become a member of the booking committee for a local music festival
- write for a music website I truly admire
- run a live events group that's now pretty much recognised as the best one in the area
- write songs and tunes and play in a fledgling band
- lots of other things I probably can't remember now

I have a girlfriend who loves me. I am a competent cook. I have an excellent circle of friends who I get to see on a regular basis. Overall, I'm a happy and busy person and while I do sometimes get down about not having an amazing day job that lets me use my potential, this is the only life I know and I really can't complain too much.

..oh and i've got a fucking good music collection... that's an achievement, right?

i think you're otm tbh

TBH, I've only truly managed to start turning things round to the way I wanted them in the last year or so. I think it must have been early January 2010 I said to friends that it was time to "use it or lose it" - that I was sick of waiting for opportunities to come to me, and that it was time to get pro-active about life before I wake up one day, haggard and unfulfilled.

It sounds so obvious, but I think much of my 20s were spent under the delusion that I'd someday get that phonecall saying "Charlie, we've remote-scanned your mind and we think you'd be perfect for this dream project with infinite earning potential and personal gratification - you can start tomorrow". Fear played a big factor in this, and I found (and still do) that I'm very good at using outside factors like money, experience or not being able to drive etc as excuses for not going ahead and asking for what I want. I can definitely identify with what Deric W Haircare said upthread about personal codes and ethics playing a big part in this.

really, all i'm picking up there is that you have an amazing concept for a remote mind-scanner but lack the self-starting mindset required to move the project on

haha

xpost

Another thing I've learnt: Despite hearing about people who manage to write a book or w/e at age 20, most things take a lot of time. I'm always amazed at how young a lot of people are when they manage to hit their peak whereas I think that at 31 I still think the best of my work is in front of me. I look back and think "Christ, I was so naive even at 24, 25 - I'd have never have been able to do anything worthwhile with myself". But then I remember that at 17 I was producing music, playing and putting on gigs and only a bit later started a web community for IDM dorks that had a modicum of success - and that's all great experience that shouldn't be shrugged off.

this thread may have infected me with the Sads last night and the Nothing got in and today I feel kinda blue
i'm sorry :(
honestly, i intended this revive to be a reminder that
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__VQX2Xn7tI

(love karen's dress in this video btw)

lol '70s

<3 '70s <3
I'd wear the hell out of that dress!

that dress reminds me of pj harvey circa white chalk!

So basically I'd be a failure in Margaret Thatcher's eyes.

if nothing else, this is a definition of success

I know an ilxor who might try to talk you out of skateboarding, Abbott.

― Steamtable Willie (WmC), Tuesday, 21 February 2012 03:04 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

??

― dream words & nightmare paragraphs from a red factory in a dead town (Abbbottt),

Hi dere wmc means me, a failed attempt at a pop shuvit (really easy trick apparently) has me sitting here with a smashed elbow.

I wouldn't go as far as talking you out of it but be careful and don't start on scary fast wheels and maybe wear some safety gear. Basically do everything I didn't :)

How do you define your potential? Have you met it?

the better question is there any potential that existed that I haven't squandered

by definition everyone reaches their potential no matter what

then my potential must be nothing

what about anyone who was murdered, guess that was just meant to be

According to who my parents and every teacher I ever had from K-grad school? Then yes. Yes I have.

Feel like I'm mostly living up to my potential to be happy and to allow others to be happy. Any more concrete views of potential wrt these sort of questions can play big part in causing unneeded stress, self-loathing, worry, etc. My cats never worry about this shit, and I strive to reach their level of living in the moment and being content with my relatively short stay in the Universe.

x-post - I suppose that would only be academically and professionally and even then by their standards and not mine.

It's worth reading this entire thread. It covers a lot of important ground.

one of your posts in this thread is amongst your best ever, Aimless :)

there are two questions here really:

a) did I even have any potential to begin with? (an unsolved question. there are certainly thousands of people who would say no.)
b) once potential has been squandered, is there any going back from it? (the answer to this is virtually always no.)
c) what the fuck am I supposed to do now? (another unsolved question. if it was a sitcom it would have ended five seasons ago.)

*three

I haven't squandered all of my potential, just 98% of it.

― Steamtable Willie (WmC), Monday, February 20, 2012 1:43 PM (six years ago)

Up to 99%+.

xps
a) is an easy one to answer. everyone has some potential, you included.
b) some potentials are time-limited or circumstance-limited and cannot be retrieved once they are allowed to pass, but their passing does not preclude the existence of valuable potential that is still within possibility. while there is life, there is hope.
c) be kind to yourself and others.

Not reaching a certain potential = a misplaced sense of entitlement and/or a missed opportunity

so far, I’d say only negligibly. I’ll have a better answer in a few years tho

Squandering it right now tbh.

idk, i think there's an old onion article that does a great job sending up this whole line of thinking. it's an obituary of a woman who would've been the world's greatest violinist except that she never picked up the instrument. what could i have been if i'd never failed? if everything i was capable of had been recognized and meticulously nurtured by others? if i'd been born in a better world? i don't give a shit. i'd like other people to live in a better world, but goddamn, i've yet to meet a single person who did everything they were capable of doing.

I meet those people every single day

Difficult to achieve full potential while being coerced to do something one would rather not be doing for 8 hours a day. Coerced, I tell you!

virtually everybody I know is one of them, and the old "well, they have problems too!" chestnut is a bad argument and does not work, because I also have an equal or greater amount of problems, with none of the counterbalances

the bigger threat is people who do things but aren't really capable

(the other chestnut that is a bad argument that does not work is "you only regret the things you didn't do, not the things you did!" speak for yourself. there are plenty of things I had the opportunity to do and didn't, and I regret them about as much as, say, ordering the hazelnut instead of the pistachio gelato. meanwhile virtually every thing I have done in my life is something that I regret)

squandering potential can be a lot of fun. i regret squandering it to the point where i've had to be someone else's problem, but everything else was fun to squander. i'm squander-positive.

I'm okay with my squandered potential. I've been making music for nearly 20 years and only released online and to friends but never tried much harder than that (tho I'm working on licensing music atm). I think I'm comfortable with low stakes

i threw away half a joint into a campfire the other night, squandering the potential of getting high on it again, and while i felt sad about the missed opportunity the next day, i eventually realized that sometimes i need to squander in order to feel free.

surprisingly, I don't regret my earlier posts on this thread

the only thing I've learned in the past few years is that you really only know your potential to do something if you try, fail, and are able to try again (and maybe fail again) and see if you've made progress since the last attempt

there are so many ways people succeed, and are skilled at what they do, only to despair when they determine they've reached a personal plateau, even if standing on that plateau means they're above most others who have tried to accomplish the same thing. alternatively, people reach that point and decide they're comfortable not pushing the limit. it's fine to be comfortable, and deciding not to go further doesn't mean you've squandered anything

map, teach me how to live

you don't want any lessons from me, trust. lots of big messes i've made.

i don't have enough time or energy to do anything but squander potential

xp think of all the knowledge you have now!

there's an entire lecture circuit available for people to explain the steps you can take in order to make a big mess where the closing statement is "so, don't do that" imo

I squander it like it's my superpower.

Or, alternately, I eke out my potential a little at a time such that it's neither squandered nor quickly burned off altogether. Just livin' the life, y'know?

My most real answer is that learning to let go of unnecessary judgments is a large part of my current journey, and viewing myself through the critical and ultimately unquantifiable lens of potential is most definitely among the bad shit I'm trying like hell to divest myself of.

i was born w a hole in my heart and a bunch of other medical problems and 36 years later it's a miracle im still alive. for that matter its miracle anyone is alive.

life is a gift. i don't really care to waste it wondering impossible things, measuring myself against a self-made fiction that could never be. seems like a huge waste of time and a one way trip towards depression.

map otm sometimes you just have to say "fuck it"

I was just thinking aloud about this in my car—I sometimes have these sorts of 1-on-0 therapy sessions in my car where I just talk through something out loud.

On one hand it’s such an egotistical sentiment, as though it’s somehow meaningful in a world of seven billion people that a single one of them maybe could have been much better at guitar if he hadn’t spread himself so thin. And yet consciousness is kind of egotIstical by nature. There is no grand scheme of things except as it exists in your mind.

virtually everybody I know is one of them, and the old "well, they have problems too!" chestnut is a bad argument and does not work, because I also have an equal or greater amount of problems, with none of the counterbalances

― aloha darkness my old friend (katherine)

you know different people from me and have a different set of problems than me so it makes sense that you've reached a divergent conclusion from me. my life experience obviously doesn't dictate yours.

oh my, yes

― mookieproof (mookieproof), Sunday, January 30, 2005 4:46 AM (thirteen years ago)

Nah. Arguably I could be much more ambitious than I am but it’s not clear to me that it’s a moral good for me to be so, and I’m comfortable enough in my unambitious life that ambition doesn’t seem worth it.

this thread is sad. i'm getting better and better in 99% of my endeavors and tbh i'm sure you all are too whether or not you see it in yourselves. i believe in you guys! your true potential has yet to reveal itself!

i'm getting better and better in 99% of my endeavors

guessing posting is in the 1%?

i'm getting better and better in 99% of my endeavors

guessing posting is in the 1%?

I *intellectually* know that there isn't such a thing as a finite amount of "potential" that one can run out of, but emotionally I have a hard time escaping the notion that I am a failure because I could have achieved more had I done things differently in the past; if I had been less cowardly/complacent, or if I'd simply worked harder. When I was in school my teachers' favorite comment to put on report cards was "zchyrs is capable of working at a higher level." And I'd beat myself up about that, the way I still beat myself up about it.

The irony of course is that dwelling on this notion only paralyzes; it actually keeps me from reaching my potential. I have to remember that all there really is are the things I want to do and the work I have to do to get there, and all the thoughts I have about success and failure are only thoughts, and I should just pursue what interests me, and let that interest be the thing that pulls me forward. At the end of the day, nobody might care about what I've done, but that's irrelevant anyhow.

"potential" itself is one of the traps your betters construct for you as a kid

you have the potential to fail continuously up until the moment of your miserable death

https://www.cardcow.com/images/set444/card00927_fr.jpg

this thread really bringing the negative self-talk

look, it doesn't matter. all human striving is useless. since its inception humanity has done nothing but repeat its past mistakes on failures on grander and grander scales. even if you by some miracle manage to overcome your environment and your upbringing you will never change that. not only that, with humanity having failed up to the point of developing the theoretical capacity for self-annihilation, it is only a matter of time before we bring it about. the history of humanity is the horror of conscious existence slowly eating away at our instinctive drive for survival.

bloody amateurs.

rusho otm

although tbrr there are a ton of “negative self-talk” threads on ILX, personally I’d prefer it stay on 77 in that one with the very clear title explaining itself, but ehh

IMO, if the balance of your life has trended more towards decency than shittiness, you've lived up to and possibly exceeded your potential.

In general, when it comes to laments about the squandering of potential I tend to think of Thich Nhat Tran's idea that "hope is what kills you". In ruminating over abstract concepts like "what could've been" you're just making your brain and your outlook worse

But

I do think I've drunk too much, and smoked too much, and I shouldn't have dated this person or that, and I wish I had my anxiety in check so I didn't lose years of my life to "pacing around the apartment talking to myself", and this job and that job were the wrong jobs-- but I don't think of it as "squandered potential" so much as "li'l whoopsies"

And

I do think that the abstract concept of "potential" is a real thing when digesting the half-life of other people's careers, body of work, romantic life, and so on-- I've always said that it's "potential energy" that makes work made by first-timers and/or young people that creates fascination, the thrill of the audience "imagining what might come next"-- but if I might look at this band or that director and think "wow, look at all that squandered potential" when they finally release their second album/film and it's a disappointment, I don't tend to hold myself or people close to me to the same standards-- I try and parse everybody's arcs in a more pragmatic way

The one aspect of "squandered potential" that I do feel, actually, on a daily basis, pertains to my physical fitness. I can't tell if "the good years of my life" were good, and thus I was at the gym daily, or if I was at the gym daily and thus the years were good, but yeah that's the one thing I ruminate on

nothing squandered nothing gained

I think that's the hidden caveat of artistic "potential" -- you can get objectively better at composing, playing an instrument, painting, but the fact you're trying to make something that's judged subjectively means it might not have an audience, or your existing audience doesn't want something you can give.

What might have been is an abstraction
Remaining a perpetual possibility
Only in a world of speculation.
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

surprisingly, I don't regret my earlier posts on this thread

weirdly, neither do i! i still agree with myself. there's no squandering unless you are dead and in that case RIP. if you're still alive you should keep trying.

The only real squandering I could see is if you are an expert in a medical/scientific/niche field and you decide to give it all to play videgames and watch pornhub all day. Then maybe. Everything else is people feeling entitled to shit without wanting to do the work.

glad to know I feel entitled to shit, sure is heartening to hear

I actually didn't quite understand your posts above. I thought it could go either way. But what I meant is that a lot of people from underprivileged or non-traditional backgrounds weren't necessarily told all the time that they were gifted or they could do anything in life because it obviously is not the case for everyone. They never felt let down later in life because they never assumed it was a given.

Don't worry, it's easy, you just gotta pull yourself up by your bootstraps.

xp

this is a judgment-free zone, unless it's a little introspection

Isn't there a meme about feeling a crush sense of anxiety if you aren't automatically good at something you try to do and then you just give up. I mean a lot of stuff was extremely easy to do as a child/teenager and adults pushed that narrative of being gifted or in the whatever percentile, when in reality you were just not a mouthbreather.

there's a lot of writing on that, especially regarding "gifted" children and how some of the ways they're presented with ideas actually makes them less likely to try new things

I am probably being tainted by that article written by Ijeoma Oluo about why white men engage in mass shootings, killing their partners and we excuse it away as being lovesick, challenged, etc. The highlighted line was "Somebody needs to stop telling these white boys that they can be anything they put their mind to."

xp this is pretty much why I sucked at math, because I didn't immediately grasp some things and doing the homework made me anxious. so I never did the homework

in all seriousness, I don't think this is "negative self-talk" so much as an unaddressed cultural dissonance in American society. the financial and social structure of society is set up to require a steady, upward and unbroken trajectory to A) live, in the sense of "making a living" (no more plateauing at the same company for 50 years then retiring; these days it's a race to see whether you can get promoted/take a job at the next level before your near-guaranteed layoff), and B) be content with your life. however, the lifespan of the average human is far longer than many people can keep that up. so if you fail at any point, you're fucked, and there are so many decades to get through knowing you're fucked.

The trouble with being a gifted kid is you most likely end up as a fairly ordinary adult, leaving you with a fevered imagination but not much perseverance.

Agree with both above. I think in the US at least there is a huge shift taking place about what that financial and social structure should be or what is acceptable. My parents thought I was a drug dealer for years because I didn't care about getting married or having children or getting promoted or talking about my job. Talking about work is tiresome small talk. No one cares. They think I wasted my education even though they have no clue what I do.

Adults should be arrested for telling kids that they're gifted. IMO.

I can see where it was all the rage with parenting and testing. It's kind of a lazy way to motivate.

I listen patiently about all my nieces and nephews constant accomplishments and I say "wow, great." but in the back of my mind I am still thinking they are still really average and kind of douchey.

there are other factors:

- the expectation that everything be done in public, as part of one's aforementioned personal brand, means that one cannot fail quietly. once you do, it is on your permanent record, and it is there forever. (this existed to some extent with resume gaps, etc., but now those resume gaps are public.)
- the hyper-ageism of it. your trajectory begins before you're born, as the continuation of your parents' trajectory, and has major milestones that occur before you're even aware that they're milestones. like, if you don't pass (say) your algebra end-of-grade test, then that affects the classes you take from then on, which affects your access to honors/AP classes, which affects college admissions in a million ways (both obvious and not; at my school honors and AP classes were weighted at 5.0 and 6.0 respectively, so even if you're a perfect 4.0 student you're still going to be outpaced by people who basically just showed up), which affects the trajectory of your life. meanwhile, the internship trajectory starts around high school, and if you're not getting the big New York internship around sophomore year, that also affects the trajectory of your life. then, if you're successfully out in the workforce, you better hope you get promoted in a year, otherwise you're pretty much fucked. it is entirely possible, and common, to be washed up one year after entering your career, which for many people happens around age 23. suppose you live to age 73; that's 50 years of what the fuck exactly?

basically, there are so many points along the line to fail. some people are scrappy or charismatic or rich or lucky enough to overcome those failures, but you need to deviate quite far from baseline on any of those for it to happen.

(although "suppose you live to age 73" may be a bit optimistic, because that requires medical care of the sort that you can only afford if you have a job)

you can reject some of those things though -- ageism hyper or otherwise can fuck off, expectations of everything being public don't need to be adhered to -- you don't need to do what other people think you should do.
everywhere there are people being quietly awesome at what they do and no one notices. who cares if you try and fail? the only way it hurts you is if it makes you stop trying.

i have tried to start at least 3 different bands and none of them have really gotten anywhere. who cares?! i will keep trying. if people want to laugh at me or judge me for failing they are not people i care about tbh.

I read this article recently that had a very good premise for writers. Instead of trying to get published as a goal, make your goal to get a certain number of written rejections a year.

I think society's weird ideas about failure come from our weird ideas about intentionality. The idea that ppl have lucid, non-contradictory motivations which they then succeed or fail to actualise is insidious; ppl are constantly warring against parts of themselves & trying to understand themselves and judgements are v partial and contextual.

LL otm. Without sinking into resentfully anti-social behaviour, there is so much solitary work of value out there that doesn't get noticed at all. We are seven billion now yet the stage is hardly any more capacious than it was when we were four billion. For good or ill, invisibility is the norm, but this needn't lead us to nihilism. If anything, we need to turn this anonymity and fragmentation into a chance.

- the hyper-ageism of it. your trajectory begins before you're born, as the continuation of your parents' trajectory, and has major milestones that occur before you're even aware that they're milestones. like, if you don't pass (say) your algebra end-of-grade test, then that affects the classes you take from then on, which affects your access to honors/AP classes, which affects college admissions in a million ways (both obvious and not; at my school honors and AP classes were weighted at 5.0 and 6.0 respectively, so even if you're a perfect 4.0 student you're still going to be outpaced by people who basically just showed up), which affects the trajectory of your life. meanwhile, the internship trajectory starts around high school, and if you're not getting the big New York internship around sophomore year, that also affects the trajectory of your life. then, if you're successfully out in the workforce, you better hope you get promoted in a year, otherwise you're pretty much fucked. it is entirely possible, and common, to be washed up one year after entering your career, which for many people happens around age 23. suppose you live to age 73; that's 50 years of what the fuck exactly?

i think this is a trajectory of a very specific type of career path that most people do not follow.

"big new york internship" there are many career paths that do not require this

"get a certain number of written rejections" is awful advice, sorry; it just makes editors dread and/or automatically delete your emails from their inbox. they do remember these things.

i think this is a trajectory of a very specific type of career path that most people do not follow.

but rapidly becoming the only one that is financially tenable in American society

fwiw i just had coffee the other day w/ a person who landed a fucking sweet plum job at a world-renowned art museum and she told me her career path and it was nothing like what you would expect from a person w/ a plum job at a world-renowned art museum, i do meet people like this all the time

i've also served on a ton of search committees at various institutions and honestly we don't give a shit what schools they went to, like it never factors in that someone when to a community college and another went to harvard

right, but that's self-selecting -- something caused you to meet this particular person, you didn't just seed a RNG up to 8 billion and decide to meet the person corresponding to what you got

Oh, I found that aim for rejections article. https://lithub.com/why-you-should-aim-for-100-rejections-a-year/

I know lots of ppl my age who are doing well financially and the only one that I know interned did not benefit from it

I don't know many (any?) people who have had that type of trajectory that's outlined above. People seem more flexible in life. But it could be a regional, class, specific sector thing.

I mean, one example: in my case, I would really like to have children, but have resigned myself -- extremely unhappily -- to the fact that I probably will never be able to, because the only way to be in a financial situation where that would not completely ruin the kid's life is to somehow turn around my complete failure of a career, which does not seem likely, or marry rich, which is not generally possible unless you yourself are rich, incredibly successful, or incredibly attractive, none of which apply, and also generally not possible for women above age 25 or so, which I've long since lapped

(there are other reasons; I know a lot of people who want to have children but have resigned themselves to not having children because they do not think it is moral to bring a child into a world that will probably be wrecked by climate change in their lifetime. which is a fairly strong moral reason. but if you are a person who really wants to have children, then you have to live with that regret for decades.)

I read this article recently that had a very good premise for writers. Instead of trying to get published as a goal, make your goal to get a certain number of written rejections a year.

― Yerac, Thursday, 29 March 2018 14:46 (nineteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm hoping i can translate this into my field and consider myself a tremendously successful academic

xpos I've never wanted to have children so I can't relate but I understand. The US in general is not kind to single people and especially single women (all women really).

Fwiw Katherine your writing makes the world a better and more interesting place