Before I was even in high school, my older cousin won first place in our school’s art show. I don’t know what type of art this is called but his exhibit was a picture of a bunch of sharks that fit together like puzzle pieces- accept they were all the same shape, as if they were made with a stencil.
The sharks were orange and blue, cut out of constructing paper. He designed them to be made with only straight lines and included a lot of sharp angles. For the finishing touches, he drew mean eyes and gills on each piece and put them all together going at an angle across the paper.
Honestly, it looked really cool. It was creative and definitely deserving of first place. My family went over to their house for a family event shortly thereafter and they had it displayed on a stand in their living room.
Everyone admired it and told him congratulations. But when I asked him if he was happy about it, I’ll never forget what he said.
“No. I didn’t want to get first.”
My middle school self was utterly shocked. The way he said it with utter disgust proved beyond a doubt that he meant it.
It took me a long time to understand why he would say something like that. Especially at that age since I liked to draw and wished that I could make something that good.
Eventually I figured it out. It all boiled down to the preconception that art was not “manly.” At least it wasn't considered to be so in my family, my school, or the culture.
My guess is that his friends or someone else gave him crap about it, he quickly found this out if he didn’t already know, and then he crafted a stance to defend himself.
The point is that just because you are really good at something doesn’t mean you should do it.
If you’ve read my previous post or you know me, you know that I excelled in school, generally without trying that hard. I’m not saying that to impress you because I will be the first to say that excelling in school has little value in itself. Which is why it was basically pointless for me to spend so much time on it.
All through middle school and high school I got nearly all A’s. Ten years from now, none of that is going to matter.
What if I had used all that time studying to work on something that would matter once I got out of college? I would be at more of an advantage than A’s supposedly give you in school, that's for sure.
Hopefully you excel in school. Hopefully you get good grades, high test scores, and lots of scholarships. Hopefully it comes easy to you and doesn’t require a ton of time and effort. But I also hope you know where to put school on your list of priorities.
Just because you can excel in something doesn’t mean you should.
Athlete-Student
BucketsoverBooks
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