[1260] Crowning Achievements

"Comparison is the thief of joy."

I consider myself a "high-achieving" person. What does that mean?

I have to lead with all the questions, or perhaps assumptions, that follow this kind of claim.

"So, what? You think you're better than everyone else?"

"You think you've achieved something, but what about (fill in amazing person/thing)."

"Oh, another person seeking attention and validation."

"That doesn't sound like much/enough/worthwhile to me."

"So then why can't you fix (fill in thing they know about your life.)"

"Me too! Wanna be autism/ADHD buddies!"

While it might be unwise to make unfair comparisons, it's a different exercise entirely to contextualize something. There's classics like measuring your education. Just by getting a degree, I'm in the "top 38%" of the U.S. population. Whether or not that means something you, or me, or anyone who might hire me, is a world of different questions. My degree didn’t matter for a decade, or anything to me at the time, and then it mattered a lot for things I never saw coming.

I like to use choice examples from my history to "argue" and "attest" to what I think is most indicative of the claim. I think they represent me in the "best" light, and what I'd want anyone to know about what I'm capable of. I have many classics.

In 2nd grade my teacher had a system of filling out these worksheet transparencies for $1, and paid out for every time you could recite a growing number of U.S. capitals. I bled her dry.

In 4th grade we had timed math quizzes where I routinely got done the fastest and was only remotely occasionally beaten by a kid named Jonathan.

In 5th grade I got rich on in-class currency and ran out of things to buy, so started distributing my surplus to the rest of the class, not knowing we were having one final end-of-year multi-room market day. I also completed the day’s homework before the first day’s bell if my teacher made the mistake of listing what we were going to do on the board. Me, Natasha, and Amy had an “extra” class.

In 6th grade, I read every book on the library reading list and passed every computer test, and when the assistant librarian protested against me moving on to reading the 7th grade books, the head librarian told her to kick rocks. Her "fuck you" face turned me off from bothering.

In middle and high school I was in honors classes. I was first chair in band (though, not section leader for marching band, because my band teacher is the same kind of smart-ass I am). Our jazz band won state. I graduated "early" (because we switched to trimesters my senior year, but I only had 5 of 6 classes so I got to come to school late, spend 3 of those classes in band (doing whatever I wanted for 2).

I worked 3 jobs simultaneously in high school if you understand the slave labor that is marching band. One, cart-boy-who-could-push-Target red cards so well I couldn't cash in all the food and CD vouchers I earned messing up your credit. I was promoted twice to management at my first job. I could clean theaters and close the concession stand quicker than anyone the entire 2 years and 8 months I worked there.

Are you noticing a pattern? I'm not talking about friendships, helping anyone, being a "good person," or anything I'm sure most people were better at while I was "doing me."

In college, I got disillusioned because I couldn't take classes where I had read every book on the syllabus and showed I had pockets of more knowledge about things than a T.A.

I threw parties like you see in the movies, designing a house layout for multiple kinds of entertainment and debauchery. I "won" a shot club party I'm still a little confused how I survived the next day. The average number of sexual partners is between 6-11 in a lifetime for men, so I'm 3-5 times sluttier, and don't plan to die soon.

I play 2 instruments well, 7 passably. I'm competent enough to utilize tools in a way that's allowed me to tear down sheds and turn them into rooms to my house. I've started several, technically broken-even, businesses, a non-profit, and otherwise worked 25 different jobs ranging from delivery boy to child welfare assessor. I've gotten certified in forensic interviewing, my real estate broker's license, and to cab drive. I've written at least 1,260 times trying to better understand myself and where/whether I belong.

I've seen 1,815 days worth of television and movies (sped up, no commercials) of 2,190 shows and 4,116 movies. I've seen 1,147 comedy/music/theater performances during 467 concerts/shows, with 882 artists at 137 venues in 41 locations. I own land, my house, 2 working vehicles. The furthest I’ve been west is California, north Montreal, south Florida, and east North Carolina.

I think many people would think about what they have or haven't achieved in terms of their family. I've functionally cut most of mine off. My longest relationship was for 5 years, and I think it's true that we probably spent the back half of it breaking up. I've never seriously wanted kids. Until my mid 20s, I had very little, if no regard, for how I spoke or carried myself in how it made you feel.

My mom was physically and emotionally abusive. My dad's the nicest person I know, and my grandma held the title before him before she died. He's also an iron-worker, Harley rider, and grew up with a WWII veteran household where both my grandparents worked in the steel mill. A certain work ethic and expectation has been instilled. My grandpa spoke 4 languages and killed Nazis. I barely understand some Spanish and really hope I’m contributing to the world in a way that prevents us from having to kill Nazis again.

I had no control over being born "cute" or "smart" or "talented" or into a free post world war country my grandparents immigrated to. I can't reasonably lay claim to those things. I certainly haven't even spent most of my life passably "wise" or "nice." I could follow certain rules and procedures to what were, in the past, more predictable ends. The abuse from my mother had me pretty-well trained not to play with certain kinds of fire. I graduated around the financial crash, within the neoliberal march towards "globalization," and concentrations of wealth more extreme than has ever existed. I grew up alongside the internet, long enough to remember before it was thing, when it used to be cool, and can now mourn for what it's become.

What "I" could or can achieve on any given day of my life is extremely context specific. Are girls fucking me if I'm not 22 and we're both at least tipsy? Thankfully, yes, but who's going to pretend that wasn't an extremely specific set of conditions that juiced the numbers? Do I graduate college if my dad didn't get settlement money and it was paid for before it began? I went from honor student to learning how to party I felt so betrayed by college, not because I was sheltered or couldn't hack it; it showed me why it was beneath me and how it was a waste of time and money.

I got into social work at 30. The wanna-be entrepreneur who found himself out of a home due to deteriorating communication and relationships with past friends was proving bleak. I started getting put in charge of transporting people's children to supervised visitations and recording/reporting how those visits went. I transferred to the State, where now I was tasked with investigating physical and sexual abuse allegations. What I said had to make sense in court. I had to invite myself into your home in a way that would keep you liking and talking to me. I never found the work itself stressful.

Now, I'm a CADAC II addiction counselor who has been told on more than one occasion I'm better than previous therapists my clients have talked to. I'm not a therapist. I've shadowed other counselor's sessions. I'm inclined to believe them, if only because my approach I feel has little to do with "me." I listen and re-frame. You either do the work or not. I'm not engaged or entertained by trying to judge you or pit our experiences against each other. If what I'm talking about doesn't make sense to you in your terms and within the context of your life, I might as well be speaking bad Spanish.

I suspect, if you've made it this far, at some point you got exasperated or annoyed with the examples I presented from my life in service to my claim. "Who cares?" "What does this have to do with anything?" "This isn't why I internet." That fundamental self-bias is the thing our institutions and traditions, often woefully, invite us to transcend. Give it up to God, right? "We're a family!" your creepy corporate overlord beckons. If you've dropped acid or done shrooms and viscerally experienced the oneness of everything, you might stay psychologically and dispositionally open to investigating just how this, and in fact anything, reflects some aspect of "you."

I think I'm moved to make something of an accounting of my sense of achievement because it feels like I'm on the verge of matching or beating where I've set the bar. I work for a company, and an individual, who I think has real promise of being a long-term business partner who I'm investing my time and resources with at functionally the ground floor. I'm paid an hourly rate that makes the all-encompassing nature of social work worth it. In weeks, not months, I'll be able to materially alter how I spend my time and what I'm able to invest in.

My problem is being perfectly convinced about what I'm capable of or willing to do. That's not a secret to me or anyone around me. My problem is how to get more people on board. I romanticize the college party days precisely because it was something that felt like "us" more than "me." For as many times as people have told me to go fuck myself (they phrase it as, "good luck"), naked tequila parties are a different animal if you're by yourself.

I think we're suffering an immense political crisis. I see up close every day how and why your "average person" cannot exercise the tools or mechanisms of their contexts. Their mental and physical health is poor. The jobs available barely pay. The "basic" life expenses can't be covered. The people who represent them, don't. I spend most of my days trying to speak to the nature of the context they are embedded in so they don't eat themselves alive with the story of what they aren't worth or can't achieve. Consistently waking up on time, getting to work, catching yourself before you say a mean or harmful thing, and allowing yourself to feel good, ever, are real meaningful achievable and worthwhile goals any day you choose to adopt them.

Today, I think it's less mysterious why I lasted as long as I did at DCS or why I continue to take jobs where I'm patiently and actively trying to quell the raging consequences of abuse and negligence that have manifested through my clients' behaviors. I don't know what we can achieve together or what you will go on to do once we sort out the "easy" things I got to take for granted as I flexed the edges of my context. I'm infinitely curious about how good things can be when we all find the right form of peace and prosperity that prompts us to achieve as highly as we can.

There's an order of operations. There's rules. There's a plane of mutual understanding we must all occupy to get there. I'd prefer, most often, we didn't have to be high and drunk to share it. I'd prefer it didn't pop up as lashing out in hatred or exhaustion for the wrong things. I think the more time we spend figuring out how much "I" am shaped by what we're paying attention to, the better chance we have to take responsibility for how we're spending that time and attention.

In the next 6 months, "I" want to have a robustly operational civic-mirror.com because I think I'll have the money to both buy the infrastructure to operate it, and afford the expertise to do it right. I want to have most of the tickets bought for the 100 shows a year average I'm trying to keep for the 5th year. I want to have my fence project completed. I want to be working a "comfortable" 40-50 hour a week schedule 4 days a week in what I hope is a growing partnership. I'd "like" to spend an obscene amount of money eating at Smyth in Chicago, and to seriously consider music/recording lessons.

I like the idea of centralizing what it means to achieve in terms of what you build or create. That doesn't pit "stuff" against a family or skill set. What took a meaningful sacrifice of time to get good at? What aren't you willing to trade for what you know or how you operate now? Are the examples of who you are or what you're worth part of a self-serving narrative, or demonstrative of your values and ongoing work? I want to make money so I can invest and distribute. I want to build accountability tools so I can see the things I want and need manifest within my lifetime and in service to the people I care about. I want to grow in my talent and capacity so I can connect with people who I admire for the work they've done in service to theirs. I want you to feel as capable of solving and organizing your universe as I do mine so we can see what they do combined.