But after all, maybe not……

So here I am, again. In the same old state that I have always been at the end of every semester exam. Filled with that feeling that I could have done much better. But this time there is something more to the story. It’s not just the guilt I hold about not putting in the required efforts. This time it is something more fundamental. It was something that I had assumed and taken for granted as part of me. But only to be proved wrong this time around.

Ever since I was able to think for myself, I have always been proud and happy about my grasping power and my intelligence. When I was a kid, there was nobody who could beat me in academics. I was the topper all the way. And as I grew up, I don’t know where things slipped out of my hands, but I began to witness my own decline into obscurity. I began to be just a shadow of the genius that I was. That brilliance, that zeal in me, slowly began to desert me. And I was left staring and gasping at all the horrid results that have gone my way ever since. There have been some opportunities for me to start all over again. But then I blew them all. Absolutely no enthusiasm in working for what would give me some success in whatever I was doing. I had no identity anywhere I went. I tried a few new things so I could start anew. But same old story. Things just seemed to end up in the drain.

And all the time I have spent days together introspecting and trying to find an answer to why all this was happening. And everytime I analyzed the things that had gone against me, I always ended up with the same inference. Mea Culpa. It was my own fault. There was no other explanation that could satisfy and explain all my failures for such a long time. My lack of discipline and my laziness to work had taken toll over all my success. My unwillingness to be regular had cost me dear on more than one crucial occasion. The mind control that I possessed, or to be more precise, the lack of it had dealt a fatal blow everytime I thought that I could somehow ‘pull it off’. Procrastination killed my spirit-every damn day of my life. And still here I am, still believing that I can pull it off from nowhere-just by my brilliance and intelligence!

And that was what I always hung on to like a life saver. I always believed that it was only the lack of my effort into studies that cost me all this. And that “if I studied”, I would be way ahead of others. Why? Simply because I was far more intelligent than all the guys around me and that I “would have studied”. But that never ever materialized. Semesters came and went, exams came and went, tests came and went, free time came and went but during all that time, there I was- just convincing myself-“don’t worry…if you study, you will be able to understand it.” And that IF never became anything else. I never studied and I still believed that I deserved the better grades simply because I knew I was the only one who was actually interested in the subject and that all others were just doing it just for the sake of it. But I never bothered to work. And I got depressed everytime I got my grades. Why the hell was I complaining? I don’t study anything and I expect good grades! Now how does that make sense?

And so all this time I have been blaming nothing but myself for all the failures that have taken place. I never held anyone or anything responsible for me screwing up my stuff. And all this time I genuinely believed that I was still capable of it- if I worked that is. I have been hanging on to that belief for dear life. And like I was saying, the only difference this semester was that my belief was proved wrong.

And that has rendered me desperate. It had been my lifeline for all these years of struggle and misery. And now I don’t even have that now. All I have with me is this new realization that I am not someone special. That I am just like any other. Maybe above average, but nothing more. I may have all the genuine interest in the world and I may know how to exactly lead one’s life. But what I also know now, is that none of that will count if I don’t actually do something about it. That one identity that I was still hanging on to is now officially invalid. Losing that one identity pained so much that I have become numb to it. There is nothing more in this life. And all I got right now with me is that true interest in my studies. But of course, this is an interest without the ability. And until something happens that makes me realize that I am indeed capable, I guess I have to live just with the interest.

So all this time I thought I was capable of so big things. But after all, maybe not……