Heart and Mind

"And look at me now?" Yeah, but look at you then.

Here's a clichéd situation we all know of. A person becomes a success—perhaps a doctor or a rich business person or something like that—and speaks with a tone of confident revenge by saying, "Nobody thought I would amount to anything. Everyone just thought I was a total loser. And look at me now."

Usually the "everyone" are people like teachers, parents, and occasionally even other peers. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that most of the time when someone gloats with that "I showed them" sense, it's usually a bunch of bullshit.

Sure, I'm in favor of the underdog doing well as much as the next guy and I like a good success story, too. But it's a crock because the people who were predicted to amount to nothing usually gave the predictors good reason to think that.

Yes, your teacher's told you that you were going nowhere. But if they did, at the time, you were probably doing shit that made them think that. If you were smoking too much pot, failing your classes, and having a "I don't give a f*ck about anything" attitude, there's no reason to think you would be going anywhere good with your life.

Unless, of course, you shaped up or grew up or got your act together in some way. Which, ultimately, is what usually happens (unless the person in question just gets lucky). So the "feel good" story is really that the chronic underachiever with the bad attitude made changes for the better and turned his life around. That's the story our subject should be describing. (Which, though better and more accurate, I still have limited use for. See the end of this blog.)

Instead of saying, "I was on a bad path and righted my ship," folks will often make their detractors out to be the bad guys who weren't smart enough to see the true vision. But that wasn't the case, was it? Seems to me they usually saw the picture pretty clearly for what it was at the time.

If you're acting out or being a delinquent of some sort, people are going to judge you on it. You can't act like they were the ones who were misguided for not seeing the future and knowing that you were going to make changes for the better in yourself.

If I have or ever do amount to anything that people find interesting or special, it's like I'd be penalized in telling my "feel good" story because I can't say, "Everyone told me I was going nowhere, and look at me now!" After all, no one ever told me that. Why would they when I never gave anyone reason to think it?

Ultimately, it's another example of something that bugs me a lot: there's a major sense of injustice in the fact that there's more glory in f*cking up and living to tell about it than there is to not have fucked up at all. Look at all the "Behind the Music" stories. Everyone gets accolades for living through a drug habit that should have killed them, but the person who never developed a drug habit in the first place doesn't get shit for recognition. Seems kind of wrong, doesn't it?

posted by Steve @ 12:13 PM