Quitting Smoking One Day at a Time...

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Thursday, September 25, 2008

Wanting Greatness.....


I finally figured out what my problem is....I just can't settle for being average or for mediocrity. I can deal with it in others but in myself, hell no! Don't get me wrong, I did not always strive for excellence in life. For a long time I was happy to be the worst at whatever I was doing, It was really easy to settle for being a total Fuck-up (The first 22 years of my life was far from great...I took a ton of pride in being one of the worst drug addicts and general screw-ups you would ever want to meet. Most people wrote me off as incorrigible and predicted incarceration. I was a gifted underachiever or so the story goes) Truthfully, I never thought I would live to see 25 or I would probably started this whole health regime when I was a lot younger.


When I got clean, I never wanted to strive for total greatness and in fact, being considered "OK" was fine by me! I always thought people who worked too hard were not very swift! I mean I could show up, half step and make no real commitment and still get by. My whole mentality was do the least possible and hope no one was bright enough to be paying too much attention.My whole mentality was that work was for other people and not for me. I always managed to find a way to do exactly what I set out to do which was not expend too much time or energy on much of anything productive. When I did get interested in something and expend even a quarter of the energy that most people did, I would excel in a very real and almost scary way! Even when I was loaded, I was in a journalism program at a local community college and excelled to a level in that program that I found extremely frightening. I excelled to the point of greatness when all I was trying to do was blend in and be "average".


I have no idea what pushed me to be so ambitious or how "average" became totally unacceptable to me. I am not being disrespectful to those who consider themselves "OK." I kind of wish I was more able to be "OK" instead of striving to be better all the time. I am really envious of people who can just do their job, go home when the day is over and show back up the next day. They do an "OK" or even a "good" job when they are there and don't think too much about responsibilities when they leave. I want to be more like that! At least that's how I feel today....tomorrow I may change my mind on the whole discussion. I am doing the "Hot for trhe Holidays" contest along with some other bloggers and have had to deal with levels of just doing "OK" and its driving me nuts! Maybe its not just all about weight loss....maybe its also about acceptance and allowing myself to be doing an "average" amount of work towards reaching my fitness goals. More will be revealed.


Peace,

Diva

6 comments:

Chris said...

loved reading this this morning, can totally relate to it Diva.
Cx

Landlady of Fat said...

oo I loooooooove the idea of "hot for the holidays".

This was a very honest post. Thanks for writing it... and good luck!! :)

Author said...

I am by far an overachiever -- and I won't turn in anything less than my best. I know life would be easier if I lightened up on myself. But then I wonder, why would I ever want to settle for mediocre? Those people may appear to have it easier, but are they as satisfied with how they spend 40 hours a week of their life as I am?

You spend most of your life working. You might as well give it everything you got and make something of it!

Christie O. said...

wow! i know just what you mean. i become obsessed with whatever it is i am doing and just can't do it "so so". yes, this was a very honest and sharing post, thank you for sharing with us!

and great job on maintaining! That's a feat too you know!! (at least it is for me!)

lynda w said...

I can totally relate. If I do something, I have to give it my 100% and anything else is unacceptable to me.

Anonymous said...

Depending on what it is, I'm all about it, but on other things, not as much. It's kind of a balance but one that works for me. That said, you know that I'm totally anal about certain things and have spreadsheets for most of the others. :)

Whatever works for you and gets you to where you want to be is just the right thing, I think.