Hard work

We've always been told hard work comes before success, that it is necessary for us to work hard so that we can harvest the fruits of our labour. But hard work does not guarantee success, and working hard and not having anything to show for it becomes tiring, and seems pointless. Yet despite this, we risk failure because of the potential rewards of working hard. So what happens when we don't get to reap the fruits of our labour?

Technically speaking, my Java midterm wasn't the first time I've failed something. But as far as I can remember, this is most probably the first time that I've actually put work into an exam and failed it. The year and a half in JC when I failed practically every single test I took doesn't count - I barely studied for those common tests, and when I did bother to knuckle down and get to work, the results soon followed.

So there is disappointment, but more than that, there is a little of bit of concern because I actually did put in work for this exam. Sure, the average was 56%, but that's scant consolation, because that's like saying "Well, everyone is mediocre too, so don't worry if you didn't do too well". Yeah, well, sure. If everyone did badly, I did badly too, and in fact, I did worse than the average, so how is that supposed to make me feel better? Not only am I bad just like everyone else, I'm even worse. So please, don't feed me that crap. Class averages are not an excuse for failing. And even if they are, the average is not a failing one.

But as I said before, what concerns me more than anything is that I studied for the stupid thing, and I actually came out of it thinking it wasn't too bad. Until they released the solutions the next day. I looked through them once, and went "Oh fuck." So I'm kind of at a loss as to what to do. There is work to be done, and the only way to get better at programming is to program more. Except I don't have the time - I have other courses to take care of too, not to mention the assignments for this course which take ages to complete anyway. And this course is a pre-req for my degree, so I can't afford to screw it up.

I do recognise that there is still time, and that it's not the final grade and all, but I don't know if I'll be able to find the time to play catch-up in a course that I've consistently tried to keep up in. Which was the whole point of being consistent in the first place - so I didn't have to play catch-up again. Now that that's not working, I have a problem.

Hopefully, I can come up with a solution.

Hopefully.

I think I grapple more with why it means so much to me now, when it didn't in the past. Why I feel the way I do, when deep down, I think I still don't really see what the point of it all is, when there is a feeling that I probably could get by with less. Why I have more trouble dealing with my own expectations than the expectations others have of me.

Does it really matter?

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother. Why I continuosly choose to set expectations for myself, and then come out disappointed, and feeling really stupid. Feeling that all that work has been a waste. It would be so much easier to go back to when I really didn't care. But that was when things didn't really matter.

In the bigger scheme of things, they probably don't matter as much as I think they do. But that's how it always is isn't it? When you look back at what mattered to you in the past, more often than not, you still get by even if you didn't succeed at what mattered to you way back when. So maybe all I have to do is scale down my expectations, and avoid all of this - the feeling lousy, and stupid, and the questioning of what I'm doing, whether I really want to do it, and whether I'm actually even cut out for this. The distinct and unshakeable feeling that it's probably just beyond my reach; that 2 years of neglect is just too much to overcome. The gut feel that maybe I'm just looking for excuses when there are none.

If I've always believed, and still believe that my grades everything, then why do they matter so much? Maybe they matter more to me than I'd like to admit. Maybe the belief that grades define a person is more ingrained in me than I thought. And yet I don't judge people by the grades, and I never have. I guess the standards I set for myself are just different.

Maybe it is time to re-evaluate those standards.