welcome to my world

Part I

Welcome to my world.
In my world there are rules which are under no circumstances to be broken.

1. You will work as hard as you can and then some.
2. You will not stop no matter how hard it may be.
3. You will push yourself far beyond the limits of what is possible.
4. You are only as good as how hard you are pushing yourself.
5. Losing is not an option. It is only a failure to try hard enough.
6. Pain is not an option. It is only weakness.

These are my rules. These are rules that have been forced on me by my parents, by those people who are supposed to take care of me and nurture me. You do not follow these rules and you are no longer a part of my world.

Part II

Little kids have it all. Everything they do is rewarded from the first word to walking steadily to a gold star on their picture. But the euphoria doesn’t last. The expectations grow with the child, grow with their successes.

There was once a little girl, a very pretty little girl. She was very smart for her age in elementary school—her successes were immense and there was virtually no failure. She did so well, she got into a special program for the smart kids in middle school. She only knew how to be the best so she kept at it, getting straight A’s, nothing less. Although at first this success was rewarded, it soon became the norm, the expectation. Anything less was punishable, anything less was not acceptable.

This little girl started to care less, to not work as hard, to have harder work. She never failed, just didn’t achieve as much. But it wasn’t enough. She had set the standard for herself and not living up was worse than anything. Throughout middle school, this girl excelled, but not because she wanted to. Because she had to.

High school started in a flurry of depression. The work was hard, the social life harder. This girl had been uprooted from everything she knew, pushed into a whole new world alone. But excellence was still expected. The expectations never wavered, continued to grow, until they were beyond what was reasonable, what she was able to do. But they still grew and she still worked.

Eventually she moved back to her world, right before the ultimate self-destruction occurred, right on the verge of breakdown. But that only meant it was easier so she had to do more. This girl played sports in which she performed well, she took hard classes in which she did well, she got a job which took up all but one day a week. She had responsibility where her parents did not take it, but she was still expected to excel at it all. Failure was not permitted. Failure was not accepted. Failure was punished.

Welcome to my world.

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