I first read this as “perfection is the preview of the Gods” - then I saw your edit, and recalled all the edits on damned near every post of mine…
It sounds to me that that a big part of your problem is frustration that you aren’t experiencing the same level of success as a collete student as you did as a high school student. In high school, your grades, athletic ability, musical ability, looks, social status or whatever particular metric you used to measure success by probably made you stand out. That got you into a good school, except now you are surrounded by a thousand other students who are probably at least as smart and talented as you. You need to realize that you probably aren’t going to be the best at everything and try harder at the things you want to be good at.
I saw this a lot when I was in college. You have kids who maybe were captain of the wrestling team or star football players in their high school in Podunk, PA. They get to college and can’t even qualify to be a walk-on. But they still have the arrogance and sense of entitlement from being the “big man on little campusl”. Sometimes they adapt. Sometimes they come across like Dwight Shrute from The Office - a sort of hostile, arrogant weirdo no one likes who just sort of doesn’t fit.
If you do nothing else, change one little thing in this thought - “I don’t know any other way to be/behave YET.” Because you don’t know it yet doesn’t mean you can’t learn it.
I used to fall into a lot of the same patterns as the OP. Still do sometimes. It helps to set attainable goals and realize you will not be the best at everything. Learn to let yourself fail sometimes, otherwise it can get crippling. There’s a balance between perfectionist and slacker. Also nip the procrastinating in the bud, it’s a common but fairly negative personality trait.
I have a question. You say you don’t know any other way to behave. (YET! You can learn!) Do you act like this to everyone? Do you lash out at your professors, or your boss if you have a job, or at others in positions of authority? Or do you mostly lash out at people who you know will take it and not punish you–like your mother and (until recently) your girlfriend?
If you can control yourself around your boss, you can control yourself around your mom. But you do have to practice and work at it.
Whoa. Cool down, dude. If the OP can’t focus on reading stuff for school, no way is he going to be able to do the grinding constant hard work of owning your own business. I know for sure, because my boyfriend has three and he works all the time for himself. I know if I tried to do that I’d go out of business because I need the structure making me show up every morning at 9.
Before even considering something like that, you need to learn how to work. Really work. Does your school (I assume you’re in the UK from spellings?) have a counseling service? What about a tutoring service? When I was in college we had a 24 hour writing center which wasn’t just for writing - they helped with study skills, all that stuff. Or just plain classes in goal-setting.
For a book to try reading, I’d suggest Getting Things Done by David Allen. It’s a time management book, but I think a student would find it useful for the “well, what do I do now to pass this class in December?” feeling.
And I do think dangermom has a point - if you can do it in one place, you can do it in others. You just have to really want to. I realized at some point when I was working a retail job that it didn’t bother me at all to be proactive and neat and helpful at work, so why wasn’t I doing it at home? Obviously because I didn’t want to, not because I couldn’t. That’s always what drives me nuts about people who are always late - if you can be on time for work and on time if they’re giving out a million bucks at 6:43 on the dot, you could be on time for me. You just don’t want to. So, why don’t you want to? Figure that out first.
ReleaseMe, I might come back with more, once I get my brain working - I was in a somewhat similar position to you when I started university (not a million years ago, I’m 26 now) - but in the meantime, does your uni provide any sort of counselling service? I don’t know where you’re based, but in the UK it’s common for universities to provide that kind of thing for students - it doesn’t reflect on you as a person, and doesn’t mean you’re broken or anything, but they are trained to give you the kind of situation-specific advice you need.
In terms of immediate study-related things, you need to work out a plan for revision and the like for any upcoming exams, and plans for any essays you need to write. You also need someone to talk to about your interpersonal relationships, I think, since you mention being jealous of your girlfriend - but if you can find some time management courses (they exist online, I think), that might help you with feeling a bit lost academically.
I have to agree. Everyone’s answer is always “start your own business”. Well first of all, it’s not all that easy to figure out an idea for a business that will actually make money. Also, the problem isn’t not liking having boss, it’s finding something you feel passionate about so you are actually eager to show up before 9am.
Lets face it. Most good colleges are there to prepare students for the rigors of working in the modern corporate office park/tower. For the past 15 years since I’ve been out of college, I see the same interchangeable meatblobs every year. They all come out of the same schools, wear the same clothes, have the same haircuts, work as “analysts” in the same companies, get drunk in the same bars and live together in the same shitty appartments until they find their opposite sex equivalent and move to the suburbs (hopefully after they get that promotion to “managing director” or “vp of director management”) to restart the cycle. So what are you worried about? You won’t get to follow them on their meteoric rise to the middle?
You’re a smart young guy who is discovering that he’s not Luke Skywalker. It turns out most of us aren’t Luke Skywalker, either. A lot of what you are going through is a battering of the ego, and is painful - you’re used to being the smart guy, and it’s painful when you aren’t able to just absorb stuff and have it be in your head.
However, now is when you get to discover who you really are - are you a smart guy who can buckle down? Are you a smart guy who can grind forward despite adversity? Are you a smart guy who can roll with the punches and come back fighting? In some ways you’re lucky - if you were never challenged in this way, you might find yourself full of yourself after 20 more years of easy success. As it is, you’ll wind up with a tempering of humility and compassion - and you’re still a smart guy.
One of the things that helped me control anger was to ask myself if getting mad was really going to help me, or just waste energy. Helps me put things in perspective. The other day I was stuck at a malfunctioning traffic signal. While I was taking stock of the situation, the driver of the car next to me was in a rage. He was red faced yelling and pounding on his steering wheel. I decided it was safe to ignore the signal, and away I went. As far as i know the driver next to me is still sitting there. The point is, if anger isn’t doing anything productive why bother with it? Getting mad at a traffic light is not going to make your commute shorter. Getting mad at yourself is not going to make your life any easier.
The unpleasant truth is you were never the ‘best’ at anything. Stephen Hawking is smarter than you. Donald Trump is better at making money. Tom Hanks is a better actor. Tiger Woods is a better golfer. But so what? Where is it written that the only way to be important is to be #1? After all in the example above Tiger Woods is a better golfer than Tom Hanks, but I doubt Tom is loosing any sleep over that.
I’m a good chess player, the fact that a great chess player would stomp me, doesn’t stop me from enjoying the game. If you spend too much time comparing yourself to other people you will always find a place where you come up short. So don’t try to be better than everyone else. Just live your life and have some fun.
One more thing, since I’ve been so preachy, I might as well keep going. Get some comedy movies, sit down and have a good laugh. You can’t take life seriously all the time.
Rather that being “best” think about achieving your “personal best.” Did I do the best that I could vs. did I beat everyone without even trying? Did I do better than I did last time, by addressing and improving my weaknesses?
After a while of focusing on personal best, just winning is kind of boring. If you win without giving your personal best, it doesn’t even feel good. Who cares who else you can beat if you can’t beat yourself?
The scary side of “personal best” is it will force you to confront your limits. When people do things easily, they are often very scared of hitting their limit, and they avoid things that push them to their limit, or past their limit, because it is such an uncomfortable and unfamiliar place. Then they start to think “if something isn’t easy, then it isn’t fun” Honestly, being a natural can be incredibly limiting that way. My dad is like this - he won’t try anything new because he’s so scared of not being great at it. Luckily for him, he is great at many, many things. But its sad to see someone so able, and so scared to push themselves into new territory.
I’ve had a further thought and it does tie in with Hello Again’s post. My self-esteem increased dramatically after three separate events. In that it was the expected process rather than action=immediate result.
The first was work I did in my thirties (a bit late) to learn how to have an adult relationship with my “good” but very controlling mother. I think it took me that long to understand that the goal wasn’t for her to change but for me to learn to change how I responded to her. That had the pleasant side-effect, over time, of changing her responses to me.
The second series of events were illnessess that challenged my self-image of superwoman and helped me to accept my limitations with a more realistic view of what I was able to do.
The third was learning over time what my values system was and learning to act from that set of values. When we do what we know is the next right thing for us to do it strengthens our self-esteem. When I violate my values system I don’t feel good about myself.
I know today that being praised and honored will raise one’s self esteem - for a little while. And living as a honorable human being, by my own needs and definition,is what creates lasting, internalized self-esteem. It requires action.