9-5-12
I was told last week that I'm not ambitious.
I guess it's true. Maybe.
Or maybe I don't know how to look for a job, even though I took Preparing to Meet the Firms. I'm not all face and chat and push to get the answers and network, network, network. I'm not an extrovert. (Coincidentally, why is it that villains are usually introverts?) I'm not good at just one thing. Why did it take me so long to figure out that what I was doing wasn't what I wanted (and possibly needed) to be doing?
I guess I'm struggling, and I don't like that. I never have. So is it really a lack of ambition, or is it actually fear? After all, cowards supposedly die many times before their deaths, as Shakespeare had Julius Caesar say. Nash says to aim high for our profiles in Magazine and Feature Article Writing class, and the best I can brainstorm at the moment is the fact that my housemate's boyfriend now works at Google. I want to aim higher, but I just don't seem to know how. I don't think I'm a coward, but I don't see myself out on many spindly limbs, either.
Or did the ambition get driven out of me (and the fear driven in) by being the smart kid in a public school, the kid who got the answer right in class and got mocked for it?
Did I shut down because I heard too many teachers say, "Be quiet; let someone else answer" too many times? (Even now, the only teacher I allow to say something to that effect is Haluska, and that's because I respect him and because we've had conversations about it.)
I also got told that I'm self-effacing. The person probably thought they were saying that I was modest or humble or something virtuous like that, but I didn't hear it that way. A synonym for effacing is erasing, and, frankly, the idea that I've erased myself, erased my personality is a little disheartening and scary. The only person who should erase me is the one who can replace me with Himself and return me to myself; I'd only do a clumsy job of it. The statement just brought back the old fear that I'm boring and not worth noticing, and I didn't realize that until tonight.
I know that God is the only Rock in my life; I just wish He weren't intent in letting most everything else be semi-shaky right now.
I'm sure this is TL;DR, but yeah, here it is. I wanted to cloak it in fiction-y status, but I just had no way to do it.
To your TL;DR post, I submit a tl;dr response.
ReplyDeleteHaving been faced with "deep analysis" of my character by people who meant well but also saw me as far different from the person I see as me, I have to admit that reading this felt a bit like reading something I wrote. To that end, I am heartily sorry that this happened to you.
Honestly, I don't think you aren't ambitious. I realize that isn't helpful, but whatever. I don't. And I really think you know yourself better than they do.
I don't know. I often find myself having to choose between accepting other people's interpretations of me and accepting my own analysis. I think the truth often lies somewhere in the middle, but closer to my side of things. I mean, new perspectives are great and generally helpful, but just because someone rightly sees something in someone else does not mean that that something is always there or always prominent.
Ugh, sorry. Okay. This is what I believe:
1. If what other people say about you is disheartening, unsettling, or confusing to you, you either aren't quite able to be yourself around them or have different priorities than they do.
2. Extroverts are more easy to get to know than introverts are, so the generally mysterious introverts make better movie villains. You don't need to do as much character exposition. Extroverts are the only friends of the lazy and the busy.
3. As for things being shaky and jobs being low-profile and/or scarce . . . let me know when you figure this one out and tell me what to do about it, because chances are I'll still be chasing bubbles at that point.
Hah. I think my response is almost as long as your original post. Sorry about that.
1. Probably a little of both, seeing as it was my adviser.
ReplyDelete2. Yes, but this is also part of the reasons I think I have for really liking the movie Megamind. :D
3. I'll let you know. If you find stuff out, let me know. Yay networking!