Atychiphobia

There has been a lot on my mind lately. Sometimes it may be silly things or decisions that are going to affect the rest of my life. I have been trying to better myself and my future lately, but it has slowly been getting me into a manic state of melancholy. The reason? Failure. The thought of it has been clinging to my mind for a while now. 

First, I am going to rewind back to when I was younger. My early school years were excellent. I got straight A's up until around 8th or 9th grade. After high school came along, I sort of stopped caring in a way. I stopped caring when it really mattered the most. I was not really taking high school as serious as I should have been. It's really disappointing because my teachers knew I had a potential for so much more. I'm generally known as a "smart guy" among my peers at school, but I have not been showing it on paper for a long time. I never really did my homework, which had a great impression on my overall grade in whichever class it was in. I figured as long as I did well on tests, I would be fine. In a sense I was, but barely. I was getting by with grades with the occasional B, common C, or sometimes D or even lower. Even if I got a 90-100 percent on a test, it didn't really matter in the end if the homework is worth more points altogether. I can't even say I got an A on every test. I remember when I got my first failing grade. It was horrible. I felt like something stringed my head in such a way that my mind just stopped for a bit. I eventually got over it, but after that I just tried to brush it off the best I could. I should have been striving to get more than that. A lot more. I just "winged it" when it came to the last year of high school. I did not realize how much it would affect me today. A lot of people do not know this, but I barely graduated high school. I was just a few points away from failing history class. If I failed that class, I would not have graduated. Out of all subjects, that was probably my favorite, too. I had a pretty awesome teacher and I was fascinated by the subject of history. Many people see it as boring, but it is an important part of life. I had no reason to be doing poorly in that class. My teacher even told me a few times that I was the only one he ever saw reading the book out of pure fascination. I would talk to him about history all the time, but I never decided to show my interest by doing the homework. Anyway, I ended up graduating, but I was not content. My family was indeed proud of me, but they thought I graduated with a much higher GPA than I did. They always knew how bright I was, but they didn't know I was lacking the effort. I just avoided the subject and tried to hide it. Eventually, word got out that I didn't do that well and I felt horrible. Certain members of my family that found out were really upset at me. They had every right to be. I wasn't even happy on graduation day because I knew I didn't even try to reach my full potential. I let everyone down and it bothers me until this day. 

One can say that my family is the "hard working" type. None of them have finished college. Most of my family members have their own business. They worked hard to establish themselves as business owners or wherever they may be at. Many of them are getting burnt out doing so, however. They always told me to do good in school so I won't have to work hard like they do and I always told them I would. 

After looking back and seeing what has happened, I decided I cannot let that happen again. I was starting to go into the same process I was in high school. Recently in school, I have not been doing my homework because I tell myself, "why should I bother doing 7+ chapters of homework when it is only worth 10% of my grade?" Why spend hours and hours to get another 10%? It didn't seem like it would not really matter. That percentage really makes a difference however, for many reasons. The highest grade I could possibly get for a class would be a 90. If I do bad on a test or something (which I shouldn't be), I would have that to help cover the bad grade, and the most important one is for future schooling. If I want to get into pharmacy school, they are going to want my transcripts from Carrington (where I am going to school to be a CPhT). It's not going to be impressive when they see I only managed to get an overall score of around a C. They are looking for people who show that they are serious by doing great in school. 

It was not until recently that I decided to be a pharmacist. I had been talking to several pharmacists, pharmacy techs, teachers, family members, and friends about it. I couldn't really get myself to decide that I was going to do it someday. Yes, it is still far off, but it's good to know what you are going to be doing in the future instead of taking it "day by day" in a sense. It was really one friend that really encouraged me to make the solid decision that I was going to do it. I do thank her for that, but then I have just being thinking to myself... "what if I fail?" What if I let everyone down again? I mean sure, now I am making the decision to do better, but this is only the beginning. What if it gets to the point where it is too much for me and I just give up? I keep telling myself I can't ever let that happen, but there is still the possibility. I don't know what I would do if that happened. It hurts me now that I am not the person everyone expected me to be, but to tell myself that I am going to be that person now and then let everyone down again is too much to comprehend.

Then this question arises: Why am I trying so hard to please everyone else? Many people say to do whatever makes you happy. It is true to some extent for me. Of course I don't want to be making a living off of something I hate, but at the same time, I want to live comfortably. One of the reasons I was leaning away from being a pharmacist was because I don't think I should have all that money. I do not know what I would do with $120,000 a year. I would be perfectly happy making $30,000-40,000 as a pharmacy tech. Then I just realized I could just bless people with it. It's really heartwarming to help someone else. Of course, actually going and doing something is better than just handing out money, but giving money still does change lives. I look at my church and see how many people's lives change because of the contribution of the church members and it is outstanding. Even now, I like giving to people whenever I can. A lot of money isn't even spent on myself, because I'd rather get the joy of just helping someone else out a bit. 

Another question that arises that people personally ask me is if this is what I really want to do. Do I like pharmacy? Yes, I do. It's really interesting to learn about the body and how it functions and reacts to different chemicals or situations. While doing this, I can also help people at the same time. I always considered being a doctor, but one of the main reasons I couldn't do it is because I have a "weak stomach". I could not look at all the different medical conditions that exist. It seems selfish to be honest, considering that these people need help and I could develop the same condition, but I just could not get myself to do it. Having to look up terms in the medical dictionary each class always makes me nauseated after seeing the pictures in there. While being a pharmacist, I can help people get the medication they need to help them get better. I can consult with them and let them know how to help them get better. While some may argue that medication is a bad thing for you, it still helps people the majority of the time. Getting into chemotherapy is a different story (it is literally poison), but I am not going to talk about that in detail. So the opportunity of helping people because of my job is something I look forward to. It took me a while to decide pharmacy, but I know it is truly something I want to do. I have considered many occupations. I have contemplated computer science, photography, video editing, history, English, and many others, but it ended up being pharmacy. I do like those other things and I am pretty good at most of them, but it just wasn't something I really saw myself doing in the end.

Even though this is something I do want to do, I just can't get over the idea of failure. It's that thought among the other things that have been straining my mind, but those are for another blog or something. I'm going to try my best to make sure that doesn't happen. One step at a time.

For the horde.