people usually think i'm smart. they expect that i'll do really well -- in school, in my career, in life. they often make comments to that effect. if i didn't do well -- in anything -- a lot of people would be surprised and then try in vain to console me.
the fact is that i don't always do well. actually, i often feel like i'm making futile attempts to climb my way out of the abyss of mediocrity. and when i make a poor showing and i know that i expect better of myself, my intellectual/academic self-image takes a blow. sadly, the damage is only compounded by the fact that people who know me and love me expect better of me as well.
in elementary school, most kids figure out that there are 2 kinds of girls: smart girls and pretty girls. and there's no such thing as a girl who's pretty and smart. the parallel doesn't necessarily hold true for boys -- there can be smart and good-looking boys. but generally, as we grow up, it seems that it's more important for boys to be smart and for girls to be pretty.
i was always a smart girl. that was my niche. i excelled in everything, without much effort applied, up until high school. that's when i started to not be good at certain subjects, and to have to try harder to excel. i was still considered smart, i still considered myself pretty intelligent, but i started realizing that i wasn't that impressive.
the older i got, and the greater the pool of my peers became, the more i felt unimpressive, mediocre, and inadequate. my honors program in college was full of people who understood things better than i did, who had better insights and contributions than i did, and who did more valuable things for the world than i ever did. since i've come to law school, that feeling has increased exponentially.
needless to say, this is jarring. considering that very basic parts of my self-image and personality are predicated upon the notion that i'm an intelligent and capable person, facing realities that i'm at least comparatively unintelligent and incapable of many important things can be quite difficult. every time something happens -- i get a less-than-impressive grade back, i get a rejection letter from a scholarship, i don't get offered an internship -- i have a minor crisis. i doubt my own ability to do anything worthwhile with my education and my career, and i wonder what's happening to the person i thought i was. where is that smart girl i used to be?
all of this is complicated by the fact that i believe law is one of the few areas (or perhaps the only area) that i still have real potential in. i could never ever have a serious career in anything science or math related due to sheer ineptitude, i could never be in academia due to its matchless ability to produce obnoxious people and irritate/bore me to death, and i can't conceive of any other profession in which i would actually feel like i was serving humanity. sometime in college, i figured out that law was the only field that i could see myself doing well in and simultaneously enjoying. if i don't do well here, i can't help but feel that my prospects of having a fulfilling life-long career are dismal.
i'm so incredibly tired of hearing "don't worry nas, you can do it!" or "you're so smart -- if anyone can succeed in law school, it's you!" or "i'm sure you'll do great." none of this helps. none of this matters. people don't know what i'm dealing with. they don't understand who my peers are. they don't even know what my actually abilities are or how they compare to other people’s. most importantly, they don't realize that i'm not fishing for compliments or affirmations – i genuinely feel that i don’t measure up, and i'm genuinely scared. i'm truly questioning whether i will ever be able to do with my life what i want to do with my life.
i want to practice international human rights law. sadly, it is one of the most competitive fields of law out there, and credentials matter. right now, i just don't have the credentials to get my foot in the door anywhere -- not even what i consider to be a good internship. and these things are cumulative processes, so not getting a good internship now impedes my ability to get a good job next summer, which impedes my ability to get a good job after graduation, etc. i just can't help but feel poorly equipped. i don't have the skills, the experience, or the grades to get myself where i want to go. and the people that i'm competing with have stellar grades, mad skills, and have already saved the world -- twice.
i'm just so average compared to these people. of course, people hasten to remind me that i'm at a top 5 law school. this is true. i can acknowledge that i obviously have some intellectual merit. but frame of reference is important. i'm not being compared to the "average person" in america -- if that were the case, then i would be above average. instead, i'm being compared to my peers here, and in that pool, i'm pretty average. in fact, i got my first exam grade back today. it could've been better. it could've been worse. that is the definition of average.
of course, we can all rationalize by saying "grades aren't that important -- tests are not a real indicator of your intelligence, etc." perhaps not, but they are a societally accepted one, and they have currency. my exam grade may not be an accurate predictor of my actual ability to do a job, but it definitely has a bearing on whether or not i get that job in the first place. credentials and qualifications matter, i don't have them, i'm failing in my attempts to acquire them, and the future i've envisioned for myself seems very much out of reach.
and if, in the midst of all these sobering realizations, when people ask me how i'm doing, i'm honest with them (e.g., "i'm scared of exams"), and i get one of the above answers in return (e.g., "don't worry, nas, you can do it!"), it only makes my life worse. not only have i been ineffectively consoled by uninformed commentary about my situation or insufficiently informed confidence in me, but my own stress has been compounded because i'm reminded that when i fail, i will disappoint others in addition to myself.
i am not what people think i am. i am not what i think i am.
i have real fears, very real fears, that i will not succeed. and nothing -- especially nothing that anyone says -- can allay my fears except actual indicators of success. and those have not been forthcoming.
...
i keep coming back to the idea of dharma. it has long guided my view of the world and my beliefs about my place in it. my dharma is that my duty now is to go to school to the best of my ability, and then to be detached from the results of my efforts. i know that it is the action that is important, not the outcome. so i pray hard, study hard, and then take my tests to the best of my ability. i have performed my duty, i have put forth the utmost effort in my action. so why can i not be detached? once the results come back and i feel dejected, i have failed not only to live up to externally imposed indicators of societal success, but i am also failing to live according to my own spiritual principles.
why can i not do better? what does it take? maybe it's because my ultimate goal is service to humanity, and i feel like unless i can win at this stupid prestige game, i can't get to where i need to be professionally, and then i can't serve how i want to serve. or perhaps i'm still attached to the idea that, as a bahai, i must be excellent in all things. and right now, i'm not excellent. i'm very very average – based on my grade today, i’m even statistically average, so that point can't really be contested. i don't like feeling this way. i'm not accustomed to it. and i don't want to grow accustomed to it. no matter how many bad grades i've gotten in my life, no matter how many scholarships i didn't get, no matter how many schools or jobs reject me, i cannot get used to failure. something inside me rages against it. and this rage coexists with the sadness and the worry. so then i battle with a strange mixture of defeat, indignation, and desire. and perhaps most of all, i feel ungrateful. i've been given so much in life. so much. and yet, i complain and feel bad about myself. why?
i want to do better. but i keep not doing it.
...
i don't know why i post all this. i've already stated quite truthfully and emphatically that nothing anyone says to console me actually consoles me. and i don't know how it benefits me to air out my personal feelings of inadequacies in the blogosphere. it’s just that i’m not that smart girl i used to be anymore, i’m kind of at a loss for what to do with myself and my perceptions of myself, and my future seems so unclear to me right now… so i suppose i'm just trying something new, since praying, studying, and trying to diversify my resume just doesn't seem to be doing it for me these days.
Posted by naseem at January 12, 2006 12:17 PMWow, I know exactly what you're talking about. I mean, exactly. The thing is, no matter how good you are, there will be rejections, and there's no way around that as long as you keep trying things. I think that life teaches us, sooner or later, in way or another, to be humble, and there's no way around that--in other words, experience has a way of making us detached that our decision to become detached cannot.
However, I've also found that for talented people who are open to opportunities, when great things happen, they can happen suddenly and seemingly from nowhere, so there really is no possible way to guess the future from wherever we happen to be.
I also know the feeling of going from a big fish in a small pond to a much, much bigger pond. And I don't know exactly how you'll change or where you'll end up later in your life. But I do know that in meeting government officials, ambassadors, NGO directors, and legal counsel for various large organizations on an almost daily basis here in DC, I happen to think you're much brighter--intellectually, spiritually, in personality--than most of them. Not that they're not often nice and intelligent people, but you've got real capacity. I know you've just explained that it doesn't necessarily help you to hear this; however, there are a lot of reasons that people win accolades or get put into various positions, and so to me, whether or not things happen to work out in any particular situation on any particular day isn't that big of a deal--which means that it's a compliment hopefully without any associated pressure.
Posted by: Aaron at January 13, 2006 01:00 PMNas, I know that whatever I say to help you won't really help you, but you're quite loved and those of us who love you think you are extraordinary, no matter what you think of yourself. We're not even thinking about how many hours you studied or how many prayers you said each day or what your ambitions are or what your undergraduate GPA was, we just love you for how you are. I hope that you can accept and love yourself more through your life and I also hope that you can let go of expectations and try to draw more than disappointment and ambition out of this life. Learning to let go is so hard, but it's the only thing that will keep us properly tethered to this world.
Posted by: lacey at January 13, 2006 04:37 PMI had a massive comment all geared up and ready to rip, when I decided that, perhaps, I was saying too much, and such over-expression would be better put to use in a non-blog from of communication. Maybe Myspace?
But yeah. I just want to say that I loved this post a great deal. Could be my favorite post of yours, for it's sheer transparency as much as its lucidity. As Aaron said, I understand completely. And while I'm not as intelligent or accomplished as you, it's all relative, eh? Eh?
I've been experiencing a lot of the same thoughts of self-doubt and worry as you, and although my situation and trajectory are quite different, I feel a degree of empathy that I hope you won't be offended by.
I think that, for me, I have a growing realization that this is it. There's nothing else. I'm not really preparing for anything. God, I love preparation. I love the distancing power of organization. "I can't start until everything's all set up" "I won't be ready until this and this and this". Elementary school, high school, my year of service. These were all specifically designed to prepare me for things. Namely, college and a career. But now, in school, I can finally see the end of the line. I can see my career. It's only a couple years away and my time for preparation is slipping through my fingers. Suddenly my insecurities and inadequacies rear their ugly little heads and smile, saying, "Only a couple years left, bub. And by the way, look at what that guy is drawing!"
Maybe I'm off my rocker (could be), but I think that this type of anxiety is very typical. It seems to me that this point in life is a sort of crossroads. Where ones "dream" segues into ones "life", and how seriously that messes with ones mind.
So, in short, I'm not going to consol you, really. I think that the fact that you are so worried about your future in law means that you are passionate about it. The things closest to us are the things that we're most critical of, right? And an important aspect of being a successful person (in anything) is to be a passionate one. Apathetic individuals rarely rise above.
So...yeah. I'll stop now. And I apologize in advance in case this is not at all what you were talking about, and not at all what you wanted to hear. As I noted before, I've been thinking about this sort of thing for a while now, so I tend to ramble. Also, I'm not all that strong a writer, so I'm hurting on that front, too.
Rocque.
Posted by: Andrew at January 13, 2006 08:18 PMThank you for posting this Nas! I appreciate it incredibly. Many of your expressions run parallel to thoughts of my own.
I want to start of by telling you that not only are you a capable person, but you have a potential within you that runs eternal. If you were to never have an experience that made you feel more 'average' than you may never be able to reach the fullness of that latent potential.
Here is part of my perspective on life. I feel that it is important for us to strive to work to the utmost of our capacity, to put ourselves into places and situations that, in our past or in the present, we would have never been able to or currently cannot seen ourselves succeeding with duties therein. The struggle and tests sting hard, causing us to even question our own self-definition. This is necessary. I think that it is important to release whatever definition you have given yourself in the past, with the realization that your capacities and qualities are endless and not limited by anything. This, in turn, can cause our own definition of ourselves to not be bound in by any self made borders, allowing a level of detachment from the 'self' that seems to me to allow the tests and trials of life to really become rooted in the soils that will lead to serious growth.
I feel that it is important to compare yourself not to others, not to your peers, but rather to yourself, to where you were yesterday or last month or last year. Regardless of the grades you receive, if you feel like you are gaining ground in certain understandings within the law school realm, then you are headed in the right direction. You are a freshman.
You are in a completely new environment. Surrounded by completely new and highly intellectual and intelligent people. If you didn't feel at least somewhat inadequete than you would have a serious ego problem. If it wasn't a struggle to overcome than it wouldn't be a test and it wouldn't lead you to growth. Without these tests to grow, your capacities would remain stagnant and you may eventually find yourself with in an unfullfilling career. But with these internal and academic struggles you are given by the grace of God, you are able to push against the walls of your own self-perception and of societal defintions of 'intelligence' and truly grow along the lines that will allow you to be a servant to humanity throughout your life. The world is seriously ailing, and without people who are able to fight through the internal struggles that arise when justice has to be sought within surroundings that are deeply embedded with injustice, the world would be screwed.
Your potential and latent capacity is incredible. I don't say this lightly. In many ways I actually hope that your law school experience becomes even more difficult and laced with even more serious tests, because I can see you growing to such amazingly incredible heights. In many other ways I hope your days are eased, because you'd be happier, but I know that with serious tests and trials you will do incredible things. Incredile things.
I have full faith that you will do incredible things.
one cannot allow one's feelings of self-worth to be predicated upon or even influenced by one's perceptions of other people's worth or perceived opinions as to your own... soon will our handful of days, this vanishing life, be gone, and we shall pass, empty-handed, into the hollow that is dug for those who speak no more, right?... chill out, enjoy your life, cultivate love and happiness in whatever surrounds you, and don't look for external answers to internal issues... bloom where you are planted, and make each morn better than it's eve, while remembering that even simple domino-maker can achieve your goals with the right attitude... and read "siddhartha" (or re-read) if you get the chance, i'm sure you've got plenty of time for leisure reading... ;)
-hermann munster hesse
The purpose of everything is for us to love each other and you are excellent at love. Don't let the man get to you! Make sure you judge using your own standards--don't buy into "excellent" defined by others! Anyway...Rejection is just another step towards finding God's will for us!
Love you nAs!!!!
maybe the best thing to know that is you're not alone. two things:
1) i've always viewed medical school as a commitment. there is a long road ahead of me, and i'm ready to take every step, even if i trip and fall along the way. i just dust myself off, say, "wow, that kinda hurt," and be on my merry way. at no point do i doubt that i have the ability to finish the job. even if it's at the middle of my class.
2) "there is no present, there is no past. i live this moment as my last." - mimi, RENT. you do as well as you can, reassess your methods, change a few things, and then move on. the lesson from this point forward is balance. being as busy as we are, we must juggle many things. God, family, friends, school. to be a jack of all trades and master of none is our calling now. (we can always strive to be a master of all, though.) :) as einstein once said, "life is like riding a bicycle. to keep moving, you must keep your balance."
miss you. hope you are well.
edward
Posted by: edward at January 28, 2006 10:49 AM