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allsystemsarenotgo · 1 year

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What is the measurement of success and failure?

Friday night, I watched a dear friend graduate with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and dual minors in Maths and Computer Science in four years.

Something I long dreamed of doing in high school. I wanted to go into Mechanical Engineering. That's what my grandfather had done and partial of what my father did.

But when I got to college, despite being an A/B student in high school, I was woefully unprepared. I couldn't do anything right. I couldn't academically pass even the basic classes.

There was a point in my second semester of freshman year that I locked myself in my dorm room for a solid week, just stuck in a very deep depression. My peer counselor had to use her master key to do a welfare check on me, and take me to the on-campus counseling center.

And it got bad enough after four semesters that my GPA hit a point that I had to change majors. So I changed from mechanical to computer science. I passed the basic classes there without issue - and one of them I was told to shut up and stop answering questions because I already knew the material but had to take the class just to have the credit on my transcript. I even had no issues with the couple of 3,000 and 4000 level courses I took in the program, but then ran into hurdles in the later classes. But there was just one specific professor that did not like me, I'm not even sure he liked anybody, and just really tried to make my life miserable. Two semesters I took his class trying to get a passing credit and failed to do so; I took the class as a condensed summer with a different professor and got through it with no problem and a high B. But the damage had been done.

I was expulsed from the engineering department as a whole after my 8th semester on campus (10 semesters counting two summers).

I ended up graduating with a bachelor's in University Studies after another 6 semesters (4 full and 2 summer). Where I went, it was basically their fast track program to get out of the college, allowing me to count three minors worth of accreditation towards a generic bachelor's. Considering I had accrued enough hours that would otherwise count for a master's degree, it was all the more depressing too have a generic bachelor's that wouldn't really mean much in life.

Does that mean I was an academic failure?

I've never been much of a social bug, but many of the friends that I made over those 6 years for the only friends I had in life. The only social life I knew was the one with other students.

It wasn't much longer than a year after I graduated that I no longer had most of those friends, and in subsequent years that number dropped more and more.

These days I only have one friend I still talk to from college, but we haven't gotten together in a few years. He is a high level executive at a firearms company now while raising two daughters on his own after their mother relinquished her rights.

My social bubble has only minutely increased since then. The title of "Best Friend" has bounced from person to person as they painfully came and went. My social bubble at this point only consists of the girlfriend on a weekendly basis and K and D (whom I just saw last week for the first time in months but text daily).

I text J and M at least once a week, sometimes daily. But I just saw J for the first time in at least a year as she walked for college graduation, and I have only seen M once (last year) in the last decade.

But outside of Facebook, that's my social/conversation bubble.

Does that mean I am a social failure?

I've never held a "good" job; I'm always lived more or less paycheck to paycheck. The "extra" things I've accrued in life have generally been purchased with my savings account of my mum's inheritance. I've spent 75% of what I inherited in the few years since she passed; granted a chunk of that was eliminating my student loans.

Does that mean I am an employment and/or financial failure?

What is the measurement in success and failure? I feel like so much of a failure when I am surrounded by "more" successful people.

I feel like there are some things, like my friend's graduation, where I had small contributions and share a bit in the success-by-proxy. Is that wrong?

It's hard not to be mad at myself about things of the past. When it comes to "What would you tell a younger self?"... So many things.

Reflecting back on the progression of J and our friendship, it just doesn't make me feel good about myself. During the ceremony, a student spoke about how she is a first generation college student/graduate from an immigrant family, and all the effort that was required for success.

Seeing people go and do and complete the things that I wished I could do but didn't...it hurts the self-esteem.

There are so many things I wish I could time travel and fix so that I could be a better me.

But I can't. I'm just another random bloke with a meaningless degree that can't get any jobs that my knowledge could otherwise maybe get me into...or that I could have gotten myself if I would have been better at university.

Yay for those that can apply themselves and be successful.

Depression for those that have failed in life.

🙋‍♂️

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