Effort

It's been a while since I've actually been on this thing other than the whole formspring thing. But something came up yesterday, and I felt the need to write about it somewhere. Maybe it'll eventually end up on a facebook note, but the notion of that seems like a cry for attention to me. This is a tl;dr post. Brace yourself.

I was talking to my mom yesterday, and at one point, she told me that my whole life, I have never ever put in 100% effort into anything I did. I thought, "Well, when you put it like that, that sounds horrible." Surely I've put all my effort into something. And then we talked and listed things I've gone through: school, sports, maintaining friendships, etc.

I literally have never given anything my 100%, full effort. Ever.

In school, I just coasted through. It either came easy to me or I just couldn't give damn. I did just enough to get by, and my mentally was that if I did better than someone, anyone, I was okay. Sure, I've pulled all-nighters to study or do essays, but that was out of procrastination and an impending deadline. I never pushed myself to see what I was capable of doing or achieving. I got C's in high school partly due to difficult classes, mostly due to me being lazy and not bothering to do shit. My GPA wasn't the greatest, but it was still better than 90% of my grade. That was perfectly acceptable to me.

Sports always came naturally to me. And as hard as I worked at practice and in games for soccer, there was always more room to improve. I knew that just going to practice wasn't enough to keep me in shape or to keep my skills up to par, but I couldn't get myself to regularly go practice or workout out on my own time. Once in a while, I'd go running or go with my dad to the field and train but never on a regular basis.

Friendships are kinda funny to talk about. You don't really think of putting effort into them, but you actually have to to maintain them. I'm weird, to say the least. I am perfectly content on my own and left to my own devices. I don't need plans on a Friday or Saturday night. I would never make the effort to make said plans. Rather, I'd wait for someone to call me or enjoy lazing about. And I was fine with that. The friends I have now, especially going back to elementary and middle school, are some of the greatest people I can think of, and I am incredibly lucky to have them in my life. Our friendships have lasted so long nearly 100% due to them. They, for some odd reason, like having me in their lives, and I can't imagine my life without them. But if there came a time when communication began to dwindle and eventually cease to exist, I would not be the first one to pick up the phone. It's a sad truth.

So, my mom told me that one day, there will be something I have to do and in order to accomplish it, I would need to put my full effort into doing. And she said that hopefully by then, I would have already known the feeling of what that's like, otherwise I will probably fail at it. And that scares the absolute shit out of me. How do you start working hard enough that you know all your effort is being put to use? I surely have no clue.

People used to say that I was such a hard worker. False. I just tried to do everything (school, sports, going out, etc.), which made it look like I was working incredibly hard. Where I am today is purely based on natural ability and luck. My mom said, "Think of where you'd be had you put in all your effort in high school. You could be at some better school than USC." Then she asked me if I had the chance to go back and do it over to put said effort into my high school experience, would I. Without missing a beat, I told her "no." I enjoyed my time at high school, and I love where I am now. Could I have done greater things? Most likely yes. But the ride I've been on so far has had a little bit of everything and I can't see myself as enjoying it as much if I did anything differently. Hopefully, college will teach me a thing or two about working hard.