This is a long post, but I'll try to make it digestible. O.O --------------------------- The feeling has been nagging me for some time, but today the point was hammered home: there's a very real chance I will fail utterly at all but the most basic activities and be a functional non-entity in the world. Normally I am relaxed and confident, but it's gotten to where I'm frozen. Normally I want to give help wherever I can, but I'm really hurting. :tears: I know I'm good at lots of stuff. I can give workable(?) advice for myriad scenarios, talk about almost any topic under and over the sun, write (and especially edit/proofread) like a champ, and in most cases have the focus to see any task through to the end. Problem is, though, it's still not enough. My gf told me once that I have no idea what it means to give 100%. She was saying it in anger, but she might have been on the mark. Right now, I'm in the fourth week of the police academy, and it is without a shadow of a doubt the single hardest period of my life. Every day I wake up before the sun rises, leave the house within the hour while making sure I have the 9 million accoutrements I need without ever forgetting one on pain of death (close enough), pass every rapid-fire test with over 80% accuracy, train hard physically for an hour until I'm spent all over and gasping for breath, then go home while the sun goes down and make sure I have clean/presentable clothes for tomorrow. By the time I get home I have about 12 1/2 hours until I have to be awake and at it again, which even when accounting for severely limited sleep, gives me negligible personal time. That leads me to my second struggle. Because of my own mistake in planning and having to miss a shift, my job has taken me off the schedule, so I'm essentially unemployed. The few hundred dollars I have to my name plus any desperately needed and shamefully accepted gifts from my parents must last me at least six months until I'm done with school. That must pay for gas (which is considerable over the distance and amount of driving I have to do), food, rent, and so help me God, Christmas presents. I've called and visited work trying to get them to make a deal with me, but they won't help. My choices are to continue to piss off my managers with constant pointless contact, or to find a new job and learn another set of skills and policies while breaking my back to excel in law enforcement. Maybe it's not the worst situation ever, but I just can't deal with it and don't know what I'll do if I run out of money. The point to all this self pity is wondering if things are this hard for most people. Do they look up at the people relaxing on the surface of a pool, yet feel like every exhausted stroke of their own is a lateral move while sinking to the bottom? I can look at inspirational quotes all day, but when it comes down to it, is it marketable? So far it seems that nobody wants what I've got and I don't know how to change that. I'm a smart guy. My class is barely familiar with each other and I'm already the resident smart guy. Even people with missing limbs and autism-spectrum disorders can find a place in the world. So why can't I? :bang:
(*hug*) I do appreciate your answer, but how does anyone do it? The success stories are well-publicized. But if that sense of uncertainty is felt with any connection to real life, where are all the failures? I'm not talking about people who get into heroin and prison and stuff, but certainly the people who don't ever complete their dreams in life don't just chug along at bottom-feeder jobs and try not to starve to death.
Life can be really hard and suck sometimes, but considering you are still alive with all this going on I would say you have a good chance of "making it". Just hang in there and do your best and I am sure you will get it better someday. Though if you don't mind me asking, there is one part here that disturbs me and I don't know if I understood it correctly: Am I misunderstanding this or are they seriously gonna execute you if you don't manage to bring everything to practice every day? Because if it is like that then damn, get out of there and use your brain knowledge to help you instead :eek:
Yes, it is. But I'd say stick with it, stay in the Academy, and you'll be fine. You'll have a real job, not a bottom-feeder job. I'd give a lot, like really a lot, to be able to do what you are doing right now. In the meantime, I totally get the money situation issue. I'd say, accept any and all help your parents can give you, and forget about Christmas gifts. Your friends and family will forgive you, I promise. But you should hint at needing some Christmas gifts for you, particularly monetary ones. On the bright side, you're not going to be stuck in school forever, unlike those in college. Your debt is going to be significantly lower as well. I'm sorry this isn't the best advice, but can I send you a lot of hugs to make you feel a bit better, at least? I'll be thinking about you. I wish you best of luck in the academy. Congratulations again on getting in, and I wish you much success. ---------- Post added 10th Dec 2013 at 06:13 PM ---------- No, you aren't misunderstanding at all. This is police academy, you can't mess up. You get to use your brain later. It's kind of like boot camp. The military needs brains, but not while in boot camp.
No I won't literally get executed. I'm not going through the Sith academy XD. But they make it so that death is not an unkind option* in the face of the punishment, ridicule, and loss of reputation that come with screwing up in such a visible way. But that is not the hard part. I just added that because I'm working like a sled dog and can't bear the thought that it might be in vain. Thank you much for the encouragement though. A job is still not guaranteed (I'm not sponsored by any agency) but if I get through I stand a decent chance. I do have about 20k in student loans from my game design degree, but with a real salary I'll be able to pay it off in no time. *I do exaggerate slightly still. I have the occasional flash of suicidal thoughts, but I'd never do it. The worst I will allow for myself is to have come up short, but I will have tried to the end.
A lot of people put on illusions. I am guilty of looking at others lives and thinking they have it perfect, but essentially, I find that a lot of people only show their better qualities to the world and there can be a lot hiding. There are many people who I have "idolized" only to spend enough time around them to realize their life wasn't as glamorous as I painted it to be.
