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Sandy's avatar

I remember thinking when I was about 10, I wish I could just be a B-C student so no one would expect me to achieve. I went on to live up to my parents' expectations. Almost a half century later, with both a B.A. and an M.D. (orthopaedic surgery, orthopaedic trauma surgery, and hand and microvascular surgery), I still wonder what it would be like to live a life that doesn't carry so much responsibility with every decision I make. The scene in American Beauty, where he is applying for a job at the fast food restaurant, is one of my favorites. "No, I'd like the job with the LEAST amount of responsibility." The grass isn't always greener.

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Shelley Bourdon's avatar

Whoa. You helped me to get inside the head of my perfectionist daughter who feels she must do a bunch of shit to impress people (the apple fell far, far from this particular tree--ha!ha!). I can remember, in seventh grade, suddenly having an insight: "Oh my god. They're attempting to control all of us!" That was when I quit playing the game of competition with my egg-head friends, trying to see which of us would get the most 100's on our tests. My friends thought I was absolutely crazy, but from that point on I decided that no one was going to control me. After that, I only read what I wanted to read, didn't bother so much with memorization (unless it was something that truly interested me), and I floated by making A's and B's (and then mainly B's and C's in college). Not until I got to seminary (where the grades were only pass/fail) did I work my butt off, but at that point, for the first time, I was studying what I truly wanted to learn, and I was jazzed like hell over my coarse work (even though I also knew that I had absolutely NO INTEREST in becoming a minister or chaplain). I think, though, what got me on this track of not giving a shit what others in this world think is that, beginning at age seven, I began having "conversations" with "God." Yeah, I know. It's the kind of thing I quickly learned you need to keep to yourself (ha!ha!). But, at that time, God became (in my mind) my best bud and I only wanted to please "Him" (as a little girl I believed God was the old man in the sky with the long white hair and the long white beard, and that "He" talked to me via my "God Radio" in my heart). My beliefs about the Higher Power of Love have changed greatly over the years, and my names for God vary from day to day; but God's still my best bud and I only want to make sure I'm living in a way that's pleasing to the Source of Love. I do believe in an afterlife, and I do believe that, during our life review, we will suffer the pain of seeing all the wrong we've done to others (minor or major). And, I'm one of those weirdos who also has "past-life memories," so I carry my current sense of self very lightly upon my shoulders because I still remember what it was like, in "past lives," being someone other than my current self. I like to think of my current self as a sort of avatar. : )

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