Good, but never great.

I was reading an article today on www.elitedaily.com, and it spoke about people who "are good, but never great". The author was refering to a particular group of people, who are "reasonably intelligent, but sometimes struggle with laziness and internal motivation". That piqued my interest instantly, and I read on. And I realised how relatable I found his article in my life.

I had always been the smart kid, the one who sees things different from other people, the one who does relatively well in IQ tests, the one who learns things at amazing rates. Sam noticed this about me too, he said he had only seen one other person who learnt things at such a fast rate, and he HAS seen a lot. That made me think back to since I was a kid, and that was when I realised it was pretty true. As a kid I picked up things extremely fast, especially things that I loved. I had always gotten full marks for my maths tests. I learnt to swim and cycle in a day. I fell in love with spiders and reptiles as a kid, and within a week I could draw out the entire anatomy of a tarantula including labels of every single part off the back of my head. In a month I could rattle off more scientific names of spiders than I had thought possible. I picked up remote control cars soon after, and within a month I was the one of the fastest kids at the track. With a stock motor. Then I got interested in explosives, and after a week of studying the Anarchist's Cookbook, I was making impact mixtures and nitroglycerin with my crazy Indian friend. Everything I tried, I picked it up almost right away.
Even as an adult, I fell in love with cars. When I bought my first diesel, I didn't even know diesels had no spark plugs. Today, my mechanic calls me for help on diesel-related issues. I tried ice-skating, and within 2 hours I was skating around the rink, albeit very clumsily. I managed to worm my way into a multinational corporation as a network engineer, and managed to convince everyone I knew what I was doing, when I actually did not even know how to add a new user to Windows when I first joined. I just acted like I knew everything and learnt on-the-go.

But until today, I look back and see that I haven't achieved anything I can be proud of. I was a jack of all trades, but master of none. I flunked junior college, went to a polytechnic, and flunk that too. I do not exactly have any work experience or skills that will bring me far in life. I still haven't found my calling, I'm still without savings or prospects. None of my hobbies I can exactly say I am an expert at, I'm just good. In short, I'm useless now. Seth Borkowski mentioned in his article, that awesome feeling of when you know everyone studied their asses off, but you just saunter in without having studied for the test but yet you just nailed it. Yes it's a damn good feeling alright, and it makes everyone look at you green with envy. And it reinforces the concept of invincibility, that you can not work hard and still be good at everything. That was what I had. My swan song was my 'O' levels, where I just fooled around for the entire year, and crammed everything in a month before the exams. And I did pretty well. But it all went downhill from there, because in junior college it wasn't all about concepts and understanding. Hard work had to be put in, you had to listen in lectures and memorise things. And that is where I failed. Badly. Because I had always believed I was "smart", and that I could get by with minimal effort, and that was impressive. I never saw the need to work for what I wanted, and that was why I failed.

I feel I had never followed through with anything in my life. I loved it when people stare in awe as I pick things up faster than anyone they have seen. But to get better at anything, you need hard work, you need practice, you need the drive to improve. And I didn't.

Firstly, I didn't want anyone to see me put in hard work. I was afraid at sucking at something. I didn't want people to think of me as someone who is pretty good at something because he really worked his ass off for it. I wanted people to remember me as the genius who "got it the first time round". And once I achieved that status, I stopped. Because I was afraid. I feared if I continued putting in effort and didn't improve as much, I would lose my "genius" status. So I would stop, and leave it at that. So you can say I have never failed at anything, but I have never succeeded either.

Secondly, it was just pure laziness. I was always used to getting so much for so little, I didn't want to put in anymore than a little. Because to me a little was always enough, anymore is just a waste of my time. I never had the self-motivation to push myself to accomplish more through hard work. It's only when I am forced to, I shine. I did well in school because my parents forced me to study. When I was conscripted into the army I was the sharpest shot, both with a rifle and with a tank. Because I was forced to. Even physically, I grew faster than others. I became the fastest runner in my battalion because I was forced to. I could strip weapons faster than most people. Again, because I was forced to. And when you take away that external drive, I fall. Because I just couldn't be arsed to drive myself.

Like Seth wrote, I always felt I was the "hidden genius", that I was meant for greater things in life, that I was just unappreciated and just needed the time to shine. But that couldn't be further from the truth. Because it has been 26 years, and the time never came. I never shone, not because my time never came, but because I have never created that time. I had been lying to myself, that greatness will just fall into my lap because I am smart. But that will never happen. Because if you never get up on your ass and do something, you will never get anywhere. You may have an all-out race car, but you will never win if you're just gonna leave it parked. I was never going to be anyone special if I didn't at least try to.

I would say I have changed a lot since then. It's not easy to get out of my lazy bones, but I'm trying. When you've been bumming for the past 26 years of your life, it's really hard to get back on track. I still get my lazy moments, moments when I want to stop, or just slow down for a while. But I force myself to get back on my feet. Running my own business now has never been a better lesson for me. Because there is no one up there to holler at you, to make you do your job. You're your own boss, your own worker, your own slave. It takes a lot of discipline (for lazy me anyways) to make sure I stay on task, but so far I think I'm doing fine. I'm also determined to get fitter, and get better at wakeboarding. This time, I want to prove not to anyone else, but myself what I can do if I set my mind to it.

So hopefully, one day I can be someone I can be proud of. Someday I want to look back at my life and be glad that I had woken up from that state of inertness I was in.