Lifting the Curse of the Underachieving Man

 

I am a card-carrying veteran of B.U.M. (The Bored of Underachieving Men).

And yes, I spelled that right. Saying “Board” made it seem a bit too official and businessy and like an organization that would actually require work so, naturally, I avoided the word entirely.

For as far back as I can remember, I’ve been told all about the potential I had. That I was a smart kid, that I was capable and had it in me to do whatever I wanted.

As an adult I’ve come to understand the negative effects of calling someone smart too often and too young. That kind of reinforcement, although intended to be positive, can start to have the opposite effect on the young mind you’re filling up with assumptions about who they are.

Kids that are continually praised and called smart can begin to assume that’s who they are as a person and therefore never challenge themselves. They do it to avoid making the mistakes that would negate that high praise and cut down the implied esteem that they naturally hold for themselves.

Let me be clear, I wasn’t a kid who was called smart all the time or who got such good grades that it was implied. In fact, I was a pretty average student with the occasional ace and a handful of failures like so many other under-stimulated souls out there.

I’m not talking about being the guy who always did well and now thinks I’m always right because “I’m smart.” I’m talking about being the guy who compared the grades he was getting with the amount of effort put into it, and assuming that if I had actually tried I would have gotten an A, no problem.

…

The nature of the underachiever doesn’t stem from a place of proof

A lot of times, the hole where an achievement should be is filled in with the place-holder assumption that we could easily accomplish the goal if only we wanted to.

In school, I would normally have, I’d say, a B-average on homework and classes in general. Sometimes dipping into high C’s and, as I said, the occasional A when it was a class I actually enjoyed like something in the Arts.

I would see that I was getting perfectly passable grades when I wasn’t trying AT ALL. I was either not studying for tests or skimming my shitty notes once and just winging it. Obviously, this reflected accordingly when in more difficult classes, but for the most part, I was able to get by doing fairly well with little to no real effort.

This being the case for the majority of my education, and never putting the same kind of importance on scores as my parents and teachers would say I should, I continued to operate under the assumption that if I was barely even trying and getting B’s, then it should go without saying that if I tried, I’d obviously get A’s.

I could ace the class like all of the smart kids, ya know…if I wanted to.

They just clearly really liked school and getting good grades and I’d rather dick around with my friends and get into high school shenanigans. I’m obviously just as smart as them because I’m not even trying and only doing a bit worse than them.

So, why would I want to spend all of my free time studying just to get a few more points when I could be enjoying myself instead?

…

That mentality has followed me well into adulthood

The only problem is, it’s not about who’s capable of getting better grades anymore. It’s about who actually has a decent life and who’s still living below their means while thinking I could do that if I wanted to.

When you’ve spent your life living under the assumption that you could do something if only you applied yourself, but never actually applying yourself to do any one thing, you open your eyes one day and realize that you’ve never truly tried at anything in your entire life.

You’ve never tried and succeeded, nor tried and failed. There have only been lucky wins and losses you could just shrug off because you told yourself you weren’t actually trying.

Not only that, but it also starts to dawn on you that because you’ve never actually tested your little theory and proven what you say you’re capable of, at this point you’re not sure you even know how to try.

Not to mention the deeply seeded fear of failure, or worse, mediocrity.

God forbid we put our full effort into something and fell short of our assumptions of ourselves. The idea of admitting that you’re actually pretty mediocre would be a fate worse than death.

Can you even imagine finally giving something 100% and finding out how far you actually fell from your expectations?

Best stick to the ambiguity of never really knowing for sure.

…

I was thinking about all of this as I sat inside a Plasma Donation Center waiting for my name to be called

These centers are filled with people from all walks of life, but the usual crowd you’ll find are the types of people that truly need the $25 they’re going to get for their donation NOW.

It’s not something to save for them. It’s a necessity for survival and they need to stretch that small amount of money as far as they can. I can’t say I’ve ever been in so desperate a position, fortunately, but more power to them for doing what they have to do to get by.

I, on the other hand, just see it as free money and a chance to read a book for an hour while making some pocket scratch.

I go twice a week. It’s good for around 500 bucks a month and has honestly helped me save a good amount of money over the past couple of years. In the mind of someone always looking out for reward without effort, why wouldn’t I make the drive there to sell my bodily fluids for money? It’s virtually a no-effort payday!

But, as I sat there feeling as justified as you can donating blood(plasma), I couldn’t help but think that this was exactly the problem.

Why was I sitting there waiting to donate for a few bucks when I could be applying myself to something long-term and worthwhile?

Have I ever even done that before?

Why was I always looking for the easiest way out?

Do I even know what it means to apply myself?

I don’t think I’ve ever actually done that before.

What does it actually even mean?

Just to work towards a goal?

To work on something all the time until you achieve it?

Should it be every day? How many hours?

Should I forgo everything else in my life until I reach the goal?

Am I supposed to work myself into a strung-out sleep-deprived mess before I’m allowed to say I worked hard?

What does it mean literally??

These are the thoughts running through my head and I sat there waiting to get paid for being too lazy to do real work.

It dawned on me in that moment that because I had never put a full effort into anything just to prove to myself what I was truly capable of, I wasn’t sure I actually even knew how to do it, even if this time I wanted to.

I didn’t know where to start. This wasn’t just studying for a test, after all. It was finding something to focus on and strive towards to give my life meaning, and underachieving just isn’t going to cut it when you’re searching for a purpose in life.

When you think you’re being sly but you’re just getting by, eventually you notice how you never feel satisfied and how the hole that your potential is supposed to fill has been barren for a long time.

Because as you get older, that hole of potential only grows while the level it’s actually filled to stays the same. One day you wake up and feel more empty than ever because you forgot to keep filling it with knowledge and experience as it grew along with you.

…

I should say as a sidebar, as close to reality as this is for me, it’s not my exact situation.

I was ruminating on these things as I sat at the Donation Center, yes, but I also was aware of how much progress I actually have made over the years. I wasn’t starting at square one while thinking about this.

I knew the amount of effort I had put in when I moved across the country on my own and essentially started a new life. I knew how much my productivity, finances, and writing have all exponentially increased in frequency and quality and I know when to give credit when credit is due.

However, when you’ve reached a new level in life and you pull up to a familiar crossroads, you can’t help but start to think in the same patterns as you had before.

Your new level has become your new normal, so what are you going to do? Continue getting incrementally better at the handful of areas you’ve been focusing on? Or use the mentality you’ve cultivated from those minor achievements to make the sacrifices needed to strive for major ones?

…

Same problem, different vantage point.

This is the curse of the underachiever.

Quite simply that it feels as if you’ll have to dig yourself out of that mindset your entire life over and over again.

That you’ll never be able to understand your real potential because you’re habitually operating under the assumption that you could do anything if you wanted to, without ever actually doing it. You never feel like you know what it’s like to actually want to do anything, and to want it so badly that you make real sacrifices to get it.

For me, my progress has been long and incremental. Little successes built up over time to finally give me the sense of being capable and the awareness to not be so overwhelmed by the mountain that I never step onto the first trail.

Those small steps are the key to lifting the curse.

People like me will always instinctively search for ways to avoid the mountain entirely instead of having to actually climb it. Especially when we learn that to even get started you have to spend a good amount of time beforehand just getting in shape.

But there is only one road to redemption when breaking free of your old habits and it starts with taking manageable steps that don’t overwhelm your sensitive underachieving mind.

The small steps are our teachers and our guides for helping us to understand what we’re capable of and the reality of what it’s like to move forward in our lives.

Only with a continual succession of smalls wins will people like us start to truly see the value in following through on plans and get the sense of actual achievement when we have something to look back on with pride.

I’m still on the trails, as are countless others. Our feet are sore, and our legs are cramped, but we take solace in each other’s company and the fact that we’re covering ground and gaining altitude together.

There’s no other way around the mountain of your life, no matter what your corner-cutting mind is telling you, trust me. And it’s always going to be better to start now than never.

So, finally do it for once.

Stop operating under assumptions and actually prove to yourself what you’re capable of.

The world is waiting.

And we both know it’s long overdue.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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