GeorgiaXplant
Well-known Member
- Location
- Georgia
Every now and then, something will pop into my mind to ponder. This time, it was triggered by a friend's post on Facebook. She's very athletic and competitive, seems like every weekend and often an evening or two during the week she's competing in one event or another. She almost always comes away with a win/place/show and a medal.
My older brother was and is a scholar's scholar, an intellectual's intellectual. He has a long list of degrees and achievements. We have cousins close in age to ours (one of whom was a Rhodes scholar), and in school it was not unusual for teachers to say "Oh, he/she is your brother/cousin? Then we'll expect great things from you, too."
It took me back to elementary school and trying to remember when it was that I pretty much gave up on academics and team sports. One day it must have registered that no matter how hard I tried, there would always be at least one person, and usually more than a few(!) who would do better in class and far better on the field.
At that point, to me it was enough to do okay in class and try not to embarrass myself in phys ed. I managed to flunk Latin I, algebra and plane geometry and didn't care, just made up for the bad grades by doing well in classes where I wasn't required to think much. As for phys ed, it was hard not to embarrass myself because I never could even do a cartwheel!
It even carried over to dance. At about age 14 after 10 years of studying, I just wanted to dance and didn't really care who was better than I was. At 17 I gave it up altogether because I knew in my heart of hearts that I'd never be good enough to make a living at it. And who the heck with bad arches can dance anyway? LOL Being a ballerina was never on my radar; I merely wanted to be a "hoofer", as in being in the chorus line for revues such as in Vegas or NYC.
Now I look back and wonder why I didn't work harder or try harder and instead simply "settled". It's not regret, just curiosity. Am I the only one? Was I just born lazy?
My older brother was and is a scholar's scholar, an intellectual's intellectual. He has a long list of degrees and achievements. We have cousins close in age to ours (one of whom was a Rhodes scholar), and in school it was not unusual for teachers to say "Oh, he/she is your brother/cousin? Then we'll expect great things from you, too."
It took me back to elementary school and trying to remember when it was that I pretty much gave up on academics and team sports. One day it must have registered that no matter how hard I tried, there would always be at least one person, and usually more than a few(!) who would do better in class and far better on the field.
At that point, to me it was enough to do okay in class and try not to embarrass myself in phys ed. I managed to flunk Latin I, algebra and plane geometry and didn't care, just made up for the bad grades by doing well in classes where I wasn't required to think much. As for phys ed, it was hard not to embarrass myself because I never could even do a cartwheel!
It even carried over to dance. At about age 14 after 10 years of studying, I just wanted to dance and didn't really care who was better than I was. At 17 I gave it up altogether because I knew in my heart of hearts that I'd never be good enough to make a living at it. And who the heck with bad arches can dance anyway? LOL Being a ballerina was never on my radar; I merely wanted to be a "hoofer", as in being in the chorus line for revues such as in Vegas or NYC.
Now I look back and wonder why I didn't work harder or try harder and instead simply "settled". It's not regret, just curiosity. Am I the only one? Was I just born lazy?
