Higher Academic Standards
After the whole briefly dying experience around four and a half years ago, I started thinking about the man I wanted to become, thought through the changes that would be needed, and realized that my goal was so drastically different from my then current reality that I would have to approach the problem like a tear down.
In other words, I would have to destroy the man I was in order to become the man I want to be.
As the weeks, then months, then years passed by, this wasn't something I focused on day-to-day, but rather something that drifted in and out of my mind until one day I heard the words "The Gentle Art of Self Destruction" in my head while I was sitting in my backyard. As an aside, it's a peaceful yard and I have a lot of ideas there.
Anywho, this seemed like a reasonable approach, so I decided to run with it. Me being me, I also promptly registered the domain name as this would be a fantastic title for my memoirs, so I can tell you this happened in August of 2023, but I digress.
Fast forward to this morning, when I was driving to provide some impromptu roadside assistance to my wife. While stopped by a school and watching kids cross the street, out of the blue I remembered a comment that appeared repeatedly on my report cards in school: Student is capable of higher academic standards. I can still see it in my mind, on the blue and white striped report card paper, printed on a dot matrix. It is indeed one of my most vivid memories from my childhood. My teachers must have had a limited number of choices for comments, but it's telling that so many of them chose the same one repeatedly over the years.
It was a random enough memory that I paused to reflect on it and try to figure out why it had popped up now. In a spark of connection in my mind fueled by frustration that I hadn't been doing maintenance on my wife's vehicle as regularly as I should, this led me to the realization that I had been taking a truly ad-hoc approach to this whole gentle art of self-destruction thing, opportunistically choosing tasks that would further me along towards my goals, while skillfully avoiding some of the changes that were needed, largely because they were, well, difficult.
I've known that my habit of avoiding difficult things is something I wanted to change about myself for some time now and I came to a sobering conclusion: Ladies and gents, I have been doing a half-ass job at this.
(I guess there is a part of me that has realized this, but I'm also good at ignoring myself.)
This kind of rattled around my mind for the rest of the trip, continued rattling around while I was checking things under the hood of my wife's car and then arranging a tow truck, and finally on the way home it rattled loose the decision that it was indeed time to systematically destroy the final remainders of the man I used to be, so that I could finally embrace the man I want to be. I've been making solid progress with the ad-hoc changes mind you - I have actually successfully made a number of large changes in my life - but I know myself enough to realize that a laissez faire approach simply isn't sufficient anymore. It's time to flesh out the list and start knocking things off of it with a level of vigor and discipline that I don't know I've ever been able to fully apply.
In the words of Nick Offerman "Never half-ass two things. Whole ass one thing." It's time to whole ass this thing and go slay the rest of those dragons.
Let's see if those teachers were right.