Memories

I miss the days when I was never afraid of a challenge…the days when I still blindly believed that I could achieve anything if I set my heart to it. I can still vaguely remember a time when I would, without any hesitation, select the hardest classes possible in school, overload on extracurricular activities, sit up super straight in class, and just…feel confident in myself. The reason I’m thinking and writing about this is because, I suddenly realized just how much I have changed.

I used to think that I just became more and more of a slacker as the years passed.  I thought that perhaps the peer-pressure to not appear too “goody goody” and “nerdy” made me apply myself less and that, gradually, I decided to “loosen up” to accommodate high-school society. I’m not particularly proud of this, by the way. But lately I’ve realized that I no longer slack because of how I might be viewed amongst my peers. These days, I slack simply because I’m afraid of failure. In fact, I do believe I am terrified. I realize now, just how terrified I am, because of how desperately I avoid higher than intro-level courses. I avoided organic chemistry like the plague my freshman year…and I was just about to wussy out of it again this year. I opted out of math 120 and physics 180 even though I have had some AP calc and physics background in high school. I even dropped a course in Neuroscience last semester, leaving me with only 3.5 credits, because I felt completely overwhelmed by the lectures. Why? Because I honest-to-god no longer believe that I am smart enough. My mom used to always tell me that I’m not really smart, so I should work harder to compensate. I think I took what what she said to the extreme. I often find myself telling people that I’m really bad at things now. I’m bad at math. I’m terrible at chemistry. I suck at physics. And the sad thing is, I really believe it.

All this has been piling onto my conscience or something, because today, I suddenly felt really stressed. I could not find a “gut” class to fill my schedule. I could not balance all the classes I need  for pre-med requirements. I didn’t even make all As in my measly 3.5 credit courses last year…how can I manage 6.5 this year? I have to take orgo sometime…and I got capped out of my human bio class so now I don’t even have a bio class. Damn, I should have taken bio last year…should I take an easy humanities instead? The worries just kept piling on and on until I just broke down. Why was putting together my schedule was so effing hard? Then, it all hit me: the reason I was struggling so much is because I was constantly looking for a way out. An easy way out. I think I’m dumb. Great. Then, the shame and embarassment poured salt all over my wounds and I ended up even more distressed than before. I looked at my watch. 8:52pm. I grabbed my bad and sprinted to the bookstore before 9pm closing time and bought all the books and course material for orgo. Dean Loge told me never to judge myself when I am lacking sleep…but today, I just want to respect myself once more.

The funny thing is, after I made the split second decision on taking orgo + a reasonably difficult course load for this semester, I feel a lot less stressed. In a sense, I feel relieved. Wait, I feel happy. Proud? I’m not quite sure. In fact, it’s okay if I’m really not that smart. I just know that I no longer want to be afraid of failure.

I want to love the challenge once more.