I have been thinking (certainly the inspiration behind most of these posts), and I have realized that perhaps I was unfair in my earlier criticisms of the academic world. The acquisition of knowledge is a beautiful endeavor that I may have attacked too hastily with disregard for the proper reasons for my disdain. It may not be so much that I do not see value in academic pursuits and perhaps even the mandatory tasks that accompany the institutionalized version of such as that I simply lost my personal motivation to succeed academically.
I have mentioned previously that motivation has been a struggle for me for many years, and the question of why is something that has haunted me just as long. Signs that would tend to predict academic excellence were present from my early childhood. I (supposedly) began reading at age 2. There were times when I completed my work in either an advanced class or in an advanced group ahead of the rest of the class. An examination of memorabilia from my childhood reveals that I earned numerous awards for academic performance in both elementary and middle school, including a special award that offered the privilege of wearing a gold cord during middle school graduation for making principal's honor roll every term for three years. My standardized test scores placed me in the 90th+ percentile in many categories, including some as high as the 99th percentile. My grades throughout most of elementary school (minu
plix (imported) wrote: Sat Jul 19, 2014 11:07 pm
s during the peak of my negative home life
in third grade) were superb, and that was generally true during middle school as well.
Various remarks and actions from my teachers also suggested that I had significant academic potential. My fourth grade teacher noted on my report card: "Plix is obviously extremely strong intellectually." As I mentioned, one of my second grade teachers pulled the necessary strings to place me in a gifted class despite my not scoring above the cutoff on the test because he felt it was were I belonged.
My middle school teachers wrote the following in my yearbooks:
"You are a fantastic student."
"Keep up the good work."
"Keep following your goals - you will be successful."
"You have a great mind and are a strong problem solver. You can be whatever you want to be. Your future is very bright."
"I have no doubt you will be a great success in high school and beyond."
My fellow students seemed to recognize my academic potential as well:
"You're smart."
"Don't change your work habits. You gonna be real successful one day."
"Congratulations on your good work and awards."
It is clear I showed a great deal of promise academically. Given this history, one might suppose I went on to attend a top-ranked college and am now in the middle of a lucrative career. However, somewhere along the way, something went wrong, and my performance fizzled. To this day, I have not figured out exactly what happened. I suppose it was not an instantaneous occurrence. It was more of a gradual loss of interest in excelling academically the way I did during my younger years. My grades, while overall likely still considered "good," slipped in high school. Instead of the 4.0 average I carried in elementary school and the nearly 4.0 average I carried in middle school, I graduated from high school with a 3.4 GPA. That it was this high is surprising giving the lack of effort I put into my work. I did not complete the infamous senior project in my senior English class, which I was apparently misleadingly informed was required for graduation. I just did not care enough to do it. I earned a B- in the class as a result, with which I was content. I also did not complete the final project in my art history class. I can still recall the gasps of my fellow students when they heard the "smart guy" tell the teacher "I didn't do it." I correctly calculated that not submitting the project would drop me to a B- in the class, and I was again content with this grade.
What may seem like nothing more than a typical case of "senioritis" was also present in earlier years. It started during my freshman year when, for the first time in my academic career, I earned a "D" on a final report card. Because of fears that it would not count toward prerequisite requirements for college admission, I later retook the course and earned an "A," which suggests what I am capable of when I really want to achieve it. I also earned multiple "Cs." Progress reports in high school consistently warned that I "may receive a grade below potential." This is almost certainly a form response issued to all students who may earn a low grade, but in my case it was perhaps a bit more true.
I began high school having qualified for honors classes due to my middle school performance, but after my sophomore year I decided I wanted something easier and abandoned these classes for standard classes. I think this, along with my willingness to "settle" for "Bs" instead of the "As" of my younger years, is perhaps indicative of what the problem was. I no longer cared about superior academic performance. I was content with being average, with just doing well enough to scrape by rather than excelling.
This attitude carried over into college. While in my early high school years I dreamed of attending highly-ranked schools, perhaps even an Ivy League school (despite my disadvantageous and perhaps prohibitive socioeconomic background), I later realized this would not be an option due to my academic performance in high school. However, I was content with knowing I would attend a lower-ranked state school. I did apply to one of the more prestigious "UC" schools (and this was the most prestigious school I applied to) but was rejected. The only "UC" school I was accepted to is probably at the bottom of the list. I ended up deciding to attend a "CSU" school, which, according to my understanding, are "lower" than the "UC" schools. Geographical considerations did play a role in deciding to attend this school over the "UC" school I was accepted to, but I think that I also thought the school I selected would be easier, and I wanted to just get by rather than excel. My grades in college reflected that attitude, and I graduated with a slightly lower 3.2 GPA.
There were some positives in both high school and college, which seemingly suggest that I did not lose sight of my goals entirely despite my lack of motivation to achieve them. I performed so well in my United States history course that my teacher had to discard my grade from the curve he used to prevent everyone else from failing. In my physiology class, I tied the highest ever score on the final examination and had this acknowledged before the class. I started college with the decision to major in philosophy and later pursue a doctorate and perhaps an academic career. Eventually, I lost the motivation that excited me when I first developed this goal. In one of the last philosophy courses I took, there was a two-question essay examination. I earned a nearly perfect score on the first question but failed the test because I omitted an answer to the second question entirely. I simply did not care enough.
It seems to me that the nature of the problem has been established. As I matured, I no longer cared about good academic performance. I was content with just passing my classes, getting my degree that would supposedly make me more money (it seems that the pursuit of money is more important than the pursuit of knowledge among modern college students), and figuring out what to do with my life from there. But how could that happen to someone who showed so much promise, someone whose fellow students and teachers were so certain would be a success one day? That is what continues to perplex me.
The problem was not the inability to do well with academic work but the lack of motivation to give it my best effort. This lack of motivation, however, is not restricted solely to academics, and it continues into the present day. I am great at developing goals, but my ability to find the motivation to actually work toward them is lackluster. There are so many things I would like to do someday. I would like to become a published writer, I would like to walk across the country, I would like to learn to play a musical instrument, and so much more. Will I ever achieve any of these? Unless my motivation improves, it seems unlikely.
Where did it all begin? As we all know, my childhood was far from ideal, and my parents far from perfect. Could this be to blame? My parents, like most American parents, insisted that I receive good grades in school, but that was the extent of their nurturing me intellectually. Neither my parents nor my grandparents are particularly well-educated, and they do not, to the best of my knowledge, embark on pursuits that would be considered intellectual or academic in nature. It is interesting to think about what might have been had I grown up in a family that did value education and the nurture of the intellect more than mine did.
Yet, despite my early home not being particularly intellectual, I somehow managed to thrive in school. Does this suggest that the ability to perform academically is inborn and not influenced by environment? Or perhaps that any environmental influences that are present are limited in effectiveness according to one's innate tendencies?
There is also the question of how my negative home experiences may have influenced my loss of motivation to excel in later years. I am not particularly fond of the "chemical imbalance" theory of depression, but perhaps as low motivation is often said to be a symptom of depression, my life circumstances (rather than a chemical imbalance) contributed to a form of depression that left me without the motivation to succeed. If this is true, is the lack of motivation reversible, and if so, how would I reverse it (other than through medication, of course)?
The other clinical explanation for my low motivation could be a schizophrenic disorder, as low motivation is said to be a "negative" symptom of disorders on this spectrum. Indeed, one therapist from my past diagnosed me with a schizophrenic spectrum disorder (I am fairly certain that she, like all the other therapists I have seen, did not consider an autistic spectrum disorder as a diagnosis). The DSM, however, seems to imply that schizophrenic spectrum disorders and autistic spectrum disorders are mutually exclusive. If you are diagnosed with one, you cannot have the other. However, I will admit that I do seem to display symptoms related to both. An autistic spectrum disorder would not explain the paranoia and unusual thinking, but a schizophrenic spectrum disorder would not explain the repetitive, stereotyped movements (to borrow from the DSM).
Recent research has led me to discover there is apparently a rare disorder known as "schizotypal autism," and this disorder does allow for the presence of both autistic and schizophrenic symptoms. Perhaps this is the correct diagnosis for me. In any case, if the low motivation is indeed due to something schizophrenic in nature rather than depressive, my understanding (at least the last time I looked into it, which admittedly was some time ago) is that there is no treatment for the "negative" symptoms of schizophrenic disorders. That could spell bad news for me and my future. However, given my inner strength and optimistic nature, I simply cannot accept there is no hope and have to believe there is a way to overcome this lack of motivation, whatever the cause.
It is frustrating now to look back on my academic performance and realize how much better I could have done. It does seem that I squandered a great deal of potential and fell short of what I was supposed to accomplish. I have no doubt that had I wanted to, I could have earned a much higher GPA in both high school and college. Indeed, my last semester of college, in perhaps a reversal of the "senioritis" that is common in high school, saw me decide to apply some effort and earn all "As" that term. Better academic performance would have probably led me to a more successful, at least financially, life. While I can dream about what might have been had I not lost my motivation, it is of course too late to do anything about my poor academic performance. The grades are on my transcripts, and they cannot be erased. So the question becomes what can I do now to reverse course and start achieving my goals?
After about four years of living in the big city, I have decided it's time to move back to the town I started in when I first came to Ohio. I guess after a while you get tired of city living and want to try something different. Now the city I am moving to is still relatively sizeable, but it is nowhere near the size of where I live now. It should give me a nice balance of open spaces and the proper amenities. Living there will make it feasible to work in more rural locations while keeping me close enough to the big city to drive there for work if I need to.